EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION previous issues by visiting the website by thewebsite visiting issues previous as well as issue the current of version thePDF or access RES of copy for ahard You subscribe can her works. of aselection up with livens theissue Shahbazi butleast, not Shirana Last work. Riedel’s Michael way to another interpret proposes Weber Grit images, moving Op at Hans look Beeck’s De acloser takes Schwerfel Peter Heinz While Pictures. London George’s and Gilbert tour of expansive an gives hand theother on Ferris McLean Laura Mannheim. Kunsthalle at Rist’s Yayoi at Tate Pipilotti of and Kusama’s exhibition Modern review ajoint presents and series her Big continues Picture J. Scheuermann Barbara contributor productive very our for the articles, As series. absorbing Ayas very this conclude Defne with talk Fatoş comprehensive and Üstek’s Shrigley David with interview Yüksel’s theissue. Burcu of gallerist the as Paolo of Colombo thequestions Capitain Gisela answers while Meckseper, to Josephine questions her with them follows Pan Lara Wolfsburg. Kunstmuseum in hisshow Stella about Frank with talks Boehl Sabine Maalouf. Amin novelist world-renowned with hisconversation with theissue opens Obrist Ulrich 8Hans RES of editor guest The interviews. inspiring of avariety offers RES of issue ninth This and readers. contributors of number its with growing year its celebrating is fifth proudly Art World/World Art RES RES enjoy the read. We you hope www.resartworld.com

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3 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER , Nassim Taleb. Hetold important to me, and still is –in different a way ). That was the minister calling me from Lebanon. ) , right? Laughs The same applies to Anri Sala, he tells me he is able to do a film anywhere but where he lives. He I talked a lot about it, because last week I had dinner in Zurich with Mayassa, she is passionate This takes us back to Lebanon. I met this person who wrote The Black Swan As a journalist, but also out of personal interest, I have always been following the events in Yes, that was the first novel. ( Interruption a call by me, at the time he grew up in Lebanon it was a practically like Switzerland,And a very all of a sudden, stable likecountry. a black swan, there was this war. How was thisjournalist, experience you to you? talked As a about all this. You have been a political journalist, right? AM Lebanon very closely, and not only in Lebanon, but the entire region.in My detail memory events has stocked from over the last 50 years. But I have very seldomLebanon. written When about I was the there events and in worked for the Lebanese press, I neverI arrived wrote about in France, Lebanon. as the Lebanese When that I was, I have been asked once inLebanon, a while to write which about I did – because I could not say no. But it was not something I felt likenever doing. attracted I was to the idea of being a reporter in Lebanon. I was far moreevents interested in Ethiopia, in covering in Vietnam, the in Iran… HUO lived in Paris and was never able to do a film about Paris. AM And I felt happy when I went somewhere, I covered a situation, a country.reporter But the idea of in being Lebanon, a to play the journalist in my own country, did not match my personality. SoHUO how did your condition change? After having spent some time in Africa,novels. Do you you remember started writing the epiphany of getting the idea to write yourAfricanus first novel? That was Leo AM HUO about this book, she wants to put it into a movie. received the Kenyatta Prize, the most important literary awardthis of idea Kenya. amused It’s me. just I had been to tell publishing you that every now and then, butpublishing without the proper things intention resembling of a narrative, a novel, a novella,not appear or theatre important plays to byme at the the way, time. but it did What was though– is the spectacle of the world. I have always –and that is related to thejournalism atmosphere I live too– I have in always been passionate about the observationI have of always what happens been in following the world, in a very regular manner the news all over the world. ( congratulate? To HUO AM Yes. Yesterday the President called me… JustHUO to congratulate… That’s fabulous. AM HUO AM I come from a family of teachers and journalists.My father was a journalista teacherof comparative and literature. He was a poet; some of his poems were printedin the schoolbooks we studied when I went to school. He also painted. He wasa talented really person. SomeoneHUO you could call a comprehensive artist? AM Yes. And I see he has been writing lots of books lately, translated into variousGerman languages or English, like and I still remember this moment when we werea “hip” sitting café of that in this time café called in Nairobi, “Fruit of the Loom”, where he said to me “I am a novelist”. He had just HUO It teasedHUO something inside of you. AM Yes, to cover the events in Ethiopia and East Africa. I had just leftthere Addis I met this Ababa man; to reach we had a nice Nairobi, contact and took a couple of beers together.“I And am a novelist”. then he told me I remember it well, it’s funny, because it was the first timetold that me most someone simply what I knew he was doing… His name is David Mwangi, but he writesMeja under Mwangi. the name I am of following his work a bit from the distance, sometimes I google him. HUO WereHUO you on journalistic mission in Nairobi? AM The idea of writing novels was present in my mind, but not omnipresent.not really It was something believe in. I did I was in an intellectual environment. Firstwe were and journalists foremost there above was politics, all. This is funny, the first time“What met I someone do you of my age do in whom life”, I asked and he replied, “Iam a novelist”, it felt bizarre1974, in to me. Nairobi. That was in winter HUO YourHUO career is asymmetric to Tayeb Salih’s one: he started as a novel-writerconverted in his to journalism youth and towards the end of his life. First things first… Tell me about your family? me about your family? HUO First things first… Tell AM Yes, and a literate in the ancient meaning. He wrote in Arab, of course,he made except in English, for a publication an anthology of Lebanese writers writing infiction. English. He He wrote never essays, wrote and any regularly for the newspapers,working and he wrote as a journalist also poetry. When in Beirut, I started I was pretty young. It becameaged a regular 22. occupation when I was CONDUCTED IN FRENCH, TRANSCRIBED AND TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDRA RIEGEL CONDUCTED IN FRENCH, TRANSCRIBED

Amin Maalouf RES NOVEMBER 2012 / AMIN MAALOUF / AMIN

INTERVIEW HANS ULRICH OBRIST ULRICH HANS INTERVIEW 2

5 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER is very complex; one gets deeply involved while involved while one gets deeply is very complex; book The Crusades method? (…) The HUO What is your reading it. The Crusades. research as for I did the same Leo the African For observation: AM A small preliminary tell was what I was going to made that The subject of the crusades the same way. I did not use them Yet there is a real need to centuries, over two When you relate an event stretching one of the crusades. also modern the chronicles of that period, and I read lost. Otherwise you get completely remain linear. to build up. So the reference on which solid because first of all you need a narrations of the crusades, the other way round, and starting from there I turned history by classical history, topic was dominated to tell, “They This story is, simply, story. oriental chroniclers in order to tell the basing myself upon “Theyarrived” instead of doing research after The African, I originally did the left”. When I started not about chronology That is, it was result though was totally different. The spirit. things in the same had been working in the and years I years was more of a narrative tool; for any more. The chronology in the novel. That was from the very first line I was completely But in reality, manner of chroniclers. and taking shape, and certain point at a jubilation, there were figures coming up another moment of on the previous page. Andfigures which I had not even thought of they have to they appear because but then they become… appear in the story, (Interruption, the restaurant waiter) … HUO I just read a book by dos Passos, AM I do not know him. he died long ago. He wrote would love his books, he is an American writer of the 20th century, HUO You and fiction. It . It is entirely a book between documentary this extraordinary anthology named USA reminds me of Adam between documentaries and fiction. Curtis, who made films that are borderline end up with start from a documentary and then case? You I wondered if there is a similarity in your As come from in your case? fiction? Or where does this displacement tools were the you said, the original same, but with Leo the African there was another form of… and I carefully watch out not material for the fiction, AM Indeed, the basic material is used as raw what the moment was, as we are aim is to reconstitute – not to leave the path of historical truth. My the African, been. In the case of Leo in fiction, but – what could perfectly have that are the things ten percent of what I tell about documents only represent historically solid and verifiable in certain his life as a human being, is pretty him, the rest is imagination. Everything that concerns his family, says with his uncle, another one which uncertain to me. There is a line that says that he made a travel that he left Granada with his family at the moment of its fall…. HUO Fragments. of Granada, on the exodus, and I placed if they’re anonymous- on the fall But I read records –even AM Yes. them into the context in fact. HUO And when you wrote The Crusades after Leo the African, who were your heroes in literature? Were they references to Orientals or to the Middle East? century. I started reading things on century. th Reconquista. And one day I started writing, ). AM Absolutely! The interesting thing is that the method you followed when you prepared Leo the African was not HUO The interesting thing is that the method you followed when a bit like a history painter: When so different from the one for The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. It’s it was an enormous research work. he drew a lot, Gericault made The Raft of the Medusa, he read a lot, seems to be the continuation of and you write novels. This research too, you made a lot of research, You your journalistic work? I launched myself head over heels into the imaginary. And it was such a joy, such a euphoric feeling, And it was such a joy, the imaginary. AM I launched myself head over heels into this is what I’ll do for the rest of my life. I was 35 years old, quite old and I instantly said to myself, lines where it happened. But it was really – a revelation. I could almost tell the actually. The epiphany arrives during the writing process. HUO The epiphany arrives during the writing and the determining moment arrived around the year 1984, I don’t remember precisely when. I had remember precisely the year 1984, I don’t and the determining moment arrived around of Leo the African. an imaginary autobiography started to write the first paragraphs of And with the what I always wanted to do in my “That’s I thought to myself, first lines, I felt some kind of an epiphany. life.” That’s it, to reverse the perspective with respect to the one you’re accustomed to in the Western world. accustomed to in the Western with respect to the one you’re to reverse the perspective it, AM That’s fall of Granada, the So I started to read on that period, the From another perspective. another HUO From this man, and in so doing I came across a little note. It said that this and this observation by Battuta a little note. It said that this man, and in so doing I came across had been confirmed by Leo the African. The name of “Leo the big moment. But that was not yet the African” no such things as at that time you had amused me. I found that strange. I never looked it up… were three lines on him. It raised there in a dictionary, I just looked briefly search engines and all that, on the crusades: The idea of with the research originally because there was a similarity my interest, the other side. counting the fall of Granada seen from Interruption, their restaurant order is served their restaurant (Interruption, It was such a furtive important to me. very that remains in my mind which seems AM There is a moment written a first book to work in the press, and I had and had started I had arrived in France, moment. my book came out, side. When the other history of the crusades seen from the on the crusades. The path», and he suggested to follow this satisfied and told me ‘It would be interesting publisher was pretty traveller of the 14 to write a book on Ibn Battuta – a big Moroccan Oh, we talked a lot about it. She is a very nice person, I’ve known her way before she took official she took official known her way before nice person, I’ve She is a very a lot about it. AM Oh, we talked said and we we discussed it, book, to me about the in the US… She talked when she studied functions, we could… that one day day… for instance, scientists, they often can name a particular … When you talk to HUO So, Leo Africanus Albert says ‘That Hofmann Mandelbrot –whom I day when I have discovered LSD’, or Benoit was the knew well- told me “That happen with Leo the fractal…’ Did something similar day when I discovered book born? Africanus? How was this complex

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7 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER told me the same – this extraordinary moment before the outbreak of the war, of coexistence – which of coexistence – of the war, the outbreak moment before same – this extraordinary told me the moment. in Granada at a given also existed is not are complicated; it the communities relations between Lebanon, you know, true. In AM That’s been violence, there have heavy were periods of tensions, there There were small a simple thing. reconciliations… conflicts, other new for 170 years, conflicts, reconciliations, constantly… at least is something extremely Still there others… mother told me about the ones and the Many lies, when my is not natural any that was natural when I was a child, which and profoundly, precious which I live in the relations later point only: There is an intimacy world. I discovered it at some longer in today’s else. I, for one, come find anywhere never different communities which you can between people from Lebanon! Which was is an intimacy with the Muslims from There community. from a small Christian links, a whole bunch of things… deeply related to personal HUO Why did it disappear? degree in Lebanon, but less than to a certain They still exist, AM Because Lebanon has known dramas… changed, there The atmosphere in the world has been all the dramas of war. There have before the war. everything is that from one another, feel their worlds differ is more harshness about identity… People between people from different quality of relations and intimacy complicated. In my youth, there was a else. Some tell me – I myself haven’t and nowhere any longer, communities, something you do not find But known it. possible, I haven’t similar before the big… That’s experienced it – that in Sarajevo it was ‘other one’ is not seen as ‘another one’ place, the absolute where this other one, who is at some different to be traced in my books, to say to is the ground of my wish, but as: ‘an other person in my life’. This world – but it applies to both sides by the way - “Listen, when I hear you talking peoples of the Western a false perception.” It is not a There is a misunderstanding, not it. about Arabs and the Islam, that’s wrong in the gesture of the discussions, something but there is something question of justifying or not, Arab feel comfortable with. I would say exactly the same to the world, to the Muslim world: When I don’t I, who has been living in the intimacy of the to do with the West. it has nothing they talk about the West, recognize myself in this rhetoric, neither of one side nor I don’t not like that. it’s world, I can tell Western of the other. feel something missing. HUO It shines through in your books that you this feeling that the reality of relations is constant in everything I write, my mind this perception AM To view of things, a view inflicted as a consequence of all sorts of events. is not matching people’s (the telephone rings) said this in various HUO Anotherpositive myths. You recurrent thing in your œuvre is the wish to create in Africa, East, interviews, that across all different cultures, be it in the Middle or the Mediterranean explain that idea to me? area, there should be the wish to create positive myths. Can you him I am going to replace within the Académie AM Lévi-Strauss, whom I’m plunged in right now –as it’s immerged in it– he said: I am definitely currently I have always liked and read his work, but Française; them to ours, the civilised, developed “When we observe the societies called primitives, when we compare in their case. In our case, we do not call ones, we do not want to see the reality of what we call ‘myths’ You said that when you live in Lebanon, the first religion is coexistence. The author of Black Swan in Lebanon, the first religion is said that when you live HUO You Yes. And I would say this was transmitted from my father to me. My father, when his father died, And My father, say this was transmitted from my father to me. I would AM Yes. not known so well, whom he rather was only 10 years old. He felt a fascination for this father he had one and the transmitted to me. To knew through what he was told by others, which was what he later had left – which my grandmother other I owed to take over this stack of paperwork my grandfather – and which I found 15 years after had left in place until her own death and never mentioned to me need to talk in a more direct manner about my family when I felt the death. That’s my grandmother’s instance, I had someone in my family who lived in a members. Before, I talked about them… For And in a book entitled The Gardens of Light, I talk of a religious very shielded religious community. he appears briefly in Origines, member, community – it is also a manner for me to talk about this family towards the end. One could say your grandfather was kind of a hero. HUO One could say your grandfather was kind I am somewhat cautious with regard to autobiography. But often I approached it in indirect But autobiography. AM I am somewhat cautious with regard to to say the obligation – to write I felt the need – I was going manner through my figures. But when but out of a in connection with myself, it was not out of an internal “urgency” autobiographically, talk about certain figures of my family; my I had the wish to feeling of gratitude towards my family. in my childhood, and who whom I have never known, but who was of a strong presence grandfather, 70 years after his fortunate to discover practically all of his documents intact, I was was often talked of. death. In a language that was not his. – So there were biographic parallels. One may say that Leo the were biographic parallels. HUO In a language that was not his. – So there elements, or African is an anticipation of Origines. Because there is a certain amount of autobiographic am I wrong? , one of the figures is of course Saladin, and I was happy to discover the very human of course Saladin, and I was happy to AM In The Crusades, one of the figures is is entitled ‘the tears of a chapter that wrote with the martial image. I think I aspect of Saladin, cutting when he person, who could break into tears It is true that he was a fragile something like that. Saladin’, told a sad story … At The majority Saladin was not a name, but his title. a given moment I understood life. His real name point in their a later had a title that was given to them at of people at that time up in the who grew book, Yusuf in the sometimes talking of him as Yusuf I took pleasure in was Yusuf. must have been pretty smart too, as he he an uncle that were militaries. Well, shadow of a father and On the other side I all but naïve. in, he was of a country he had just arrived rapidly became emperor wanting to make any easy Without to the crusades. was sensitive to his human side, in counterpart I found interest in someone having left his it cannot be a coincidence that out of the blue psychology, writing in Italy, found himself in order to immigrate to a different world. He eventually country in war, in Italian. In a way, both, but mainly literary, in the sense of this invention that is the figure in the novel Leo that is the figure in of this invention in the sense both, but mainly literary, HUO In a way, be the past‘. Which could of fragments of invent on the basis says, ‘we often . But as Panofsky the African from The all the transition The Crusades – and above have inspired you of the past that the fragments followed? and the novels that Crusades to Leo the African In the literary sense or in the sense of life? sense or in the AM In the literary

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9 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER I will send you my book on Lorca. you my book on Lorca. HUO I will send pleasure. AM With Arab within the such examples there any in Spain – are in Greece, the moment HUO The moment world? describes so marvellously within in 1900. Which Stefan Zweig is Vienna AM A very beautiful moment There is also an an extraordinary moment. It is of Yesterday”. in “Thethe first dozens of pages World period on all this extraordinary who tells in The Proud Tower American historian, Barbara Tuchman, with the of barbarism within civilisation, starting you have the outburst the eve of 1914. Thereafter, something. Of and that demolishes going on for a long time after that, I and War butchery of World has broken when we Something broken. progress etc., but something has course, there is scientific in Austro-Hungarian of the tender feelings for these last moments entered 1914. I have Empire, Vienna talents in all fields… 1900, full of so many 1900” that I saw, … HUO There was this big exhibition “Vienna too… AM It was in Paris afterwards. HUO Yes, AM It had a beautiful subtitle: “The by Klimt with a pregnant woman, jolly apocalypse” with a painting very beautiful. Indeed I remember that. … to the 11th century, HUO So, there is Greece, Spain from the 8th to my mind. AM Maybe others, but that is what comes directly HUO Do you have projects, non-realised novels? AM Oh, plenty!! (Laughs) HUO Dreams? for all kinds of reasons I passed on I have written in part and AM Many! Some are in a latent state; some reason three novels, written, but for a to something else, they are lying in a drawer – I even have two or know what. and don’t with the thought there is something I’d like to modify, I let them rest, or another, HUO Can you talk about them, or…? AM No, it is too early. This is in some way linked to the HUO In the present art world the Middle East is much talked about. question on The Crusades through Arab Eyes – the artists of the Middle East are very displeased about world that calls this region “The Middle this wording, they say it is an Occidentalism; it is the Western their perspective. AndEast”. It is the Middle East from here, but not the Middle East from in lack of other am going to present you the true version; it is not true version; it is not to present you the I am going or 11th century, then comes the decline. There was or 11th century, th century to the 10 th I have Lorca’s bust in my office. AM I have Lorca’s I worked a lot about Granada and Federico Garcia Lorca, he was very inspired by that. The whole Garcia Lorca, he was very inspired by that. HUO I worked a lot about Granada and Federico triangle Dali- Buñuel- Lorca was inspired by its magic. AM …and that had the same clauses as that one… At the same time… HUO … that was another miracle … Another she was someone I example: As I told you, I was a profound admirer of Jacqueline de Romilly, specialists of Ancientliked very much. She was one of the great moments in Greece. One of the greatest the invention universal History is this Athenian moment where you have the invention of democracy, thinks, what a marvellous moment in history one of History, of theatre, etc. Looking back at this period ‘but you know, at But then you can also say, this moment. of mankind, what a miracle to have known wars between the Athenians, there have been constantly that time, women were totally excluded, the true! One can always say “yes, but”, “yes, was slavery – and all is Spartans, Thebes etc, one can say there this moment of History you go, what say: Here there are moments in history where one must but”. I say, which brought light to the rest of the world, is this: the possibility of a miracle, has finally brought, myths, even if there are always things to build those positive and for a long time. I think it is important able to attenuate. As far as I am concerned, I am trying to construct around the destiny of the three religions… a moment of encounter between these different cultures. Of course, when you have a closer look at it, when you have a closer look at it, different cultures. Of course, a moment of encounter between these those cultures, there were there never was such a thing as equality between all “in reality, you can say, to build on the of course, but we need - constantly…” Yes, tensions, conflicts, humiliations, harassment has brought forward, at all levels, cultures, on what this culture interaction that existed between these the positive myth of a possible coexistence. in all fields, and build on this from agronomics to poetry, … yes, the whole period - Granada was at the end – the whole period going from the 8th century to… at the end – the whole AM … yes, the whole period - Granada was the great period was from the 8 … the moment of Granada, the coexistence, … HUO … the moment of Granada, the coexistence, It is not true! If you tell me that their history is made of conflicts and mutual disdainfulness, I am and mutual tell me that their history is made of conflicts AM It is not true! If you of negative myths, to say is that we all have some sort false. What I’m trying it’s not going to tell you are to them. We to change it difficult to these relations, and making producing heavy handicaps but by positive myths that need to possess, myths, not by truths, which we don’t confront these negative of the three religions, about the Spain I talk must construct positive myths. When be constructed. One The true version, or the solution. HUO The true version, or them ‘myths’, because we have a different perception of what we are, but also because we have our own also because we have of what we are, but different perception because we have a them ‘myths’, nations, our myths, for our myths, we need founding There are History. manner of telling myths, our these are also myths.” “Yes, modesty. A cultural modesty. to a kind of it appealed In some way, societies.” the Western the relations between what is said about want to declare that opinion, I do not I share this is false, and that world for instance and the Eastern true!

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11 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER in disorder, my grandfather, the protestant staff at the school he went to, the school he had founded – went to, the school at the school he the protestant staff my grandfather, in disorder, I went to Eight years later, of. made the novel is and this is what was sort of mingled, but everything is when disappeared; that I believed had which papers of my grandfather, and discovered the Lebanon, Tanius. Apart I wrote The Rock of I wanted to write when , the book I wrote Origins that in from the fact a story. thus imagined and have had not found the documents 1991/92, I project! HUO Origins was the non-realized , which was I found the documents, I wrote Origins When it. and I did not feel I could realize AM Exactly, . (Laughs) which I had written The Rock of Tanius the initial project for that we have been your translator to Catherine Temerson, like a time travel. – It is thanks HUO Fabulous, able to meet… prevented ago, but some trouble with my back three or four months to New York AM I had planned to go she was there at the time – to was going to come – for me from going. She wrote to me that she participate in the meeting I was in. invite you for a reading on Garden of gardens. Maybe we could HUO Currently at the Serpentine, I work on to the subject “Garden”? Life, or do you have something else linked AM I like readings, but not so much lectures. HUO It is a reading, yes. much to but not at all in France, in Germany and in England, AM This is something I like. I did a few ones my regret. made you with The Gardens of Life. Can you talk to me about the book? What would like to invite HUO We you write it? AM At I had written a first book, was very interested in Persian civilization. a certain point of my life I usual I read a lot on the History of Persia. I came Samarkand, which spoke of Omar Khayyam, and as etymology of the I did not even know the confess that earlier, across an astonishing figure, Mani. I must I thought it was Mani. Sincerely, it came from a person called word Manichaeism. I was not aware that a Greek term that meant something. And I was fascinated by this figure, and I was fortunate to obtain, a clergyman having intensely worked on the university professor, through the intermediary of a French but he worked not discovered, Well, phenomenon of Manichaeism, and who had discovered a manuscript. well preserved, and that was a narration of a manuscript he had found in the 30s, in Egypt, It is on it. working still well preserved. I started youth, preserved in the sand, as is often the case in Egypt, Mani’s with a story linked to my family. on the story of this figure, and as I said, at a certain point it crossed a year in a religious community There was someone in my family who, at a certain time went to spend one those two phenomena: On the in the United States. I would say there was an interaction between face, and something that touched side, the discovery of a figure of which I felt like finding the real my as it was– I would not say one of my traumata, but something very present during me intimately, childhood and my youth. That is how the title… And Mani, for whom light was a constant revelation, had century. There century. th ). In reality, I felt the ). In reality, AM The Rock of Tanius is a book that should have been something else. (Both laugh about the school he had founded in 1912, about the village, yet wish to write about my grandfather, So, after going round in circles – I remember I did not have the necessary elements to talk about it. but the write about my grandfather, this period well, I was rather anxious, because I felt this wish to and I took this available elements were exiguous. At the end, an incident happened in my family, homicide of a patriarch -… I narrated, incident and expressed on the basis of this incident – it was the is also the subject of coexistence, and many of your other subjects. Can you tell me how it is all linked? Can you tell me how it is all linked? is also the subject of coexistence, and many of your other subjects. When we talked about coexistence, positive myths – the first of your books I have read was The Rock HUO When we talked about coexistence, positive myths – the first like a Russian matrushka doll. It is set in the 19 of Tanius, it was a story within a story, No, sincerely it is something I would not be good at. Really. I believe that politics – I am very I believe that politics – I am Really. be good at. AM No, sincerely it is something I would not demanding a high degree of enough to know it is something interested in politics, I know politics well just like at the end of your career, just do it as an amateur, can’t professionalism and dedication. You I (laughs), I am highly interested in it, I entertain a platonic relationship with politics No, you can’t. that. without ever getting tired, not only for days, weeks, months, am capable of following events in the world to give my point of view! (Laughs). but even without wanting without the intention of getting involved, but when I write, nourished by that, I am and I need that, Just observing the world gives me satisfaction, spectacle of the world. can only be inspired by the what I write is not directly linked and Maybe that is the solution! We will thank Indira Gandhi, incredible. – You told me before that Semprun will thank Indira Gandhi, incredible. – You AM Maybe that is the solution! We you are one of the great writers of you were a political journalist, was your friend, he went into politics, – could one imagine that one day you writers go into politics our times; I wondered –because often great or president? will be minister, Maybe. Because the idea to place the world between Near East, Middle East, Far East etc. and West Asia, East etc. and West Far East, Middle between Near East, AM Maybe. Because the idea to place the world this remark intelligent! up to Iran. I found the Arabianthat would be the Levant, Peninsula, Turkey, HUO So this is the solution maybe… The advantage of this denomination is talking about a universe of mainly Muslim civilization without of mainly Muslim denomination is talking about a universe AM The advantage of this The idea of calling is restrictive. everything, The reference to religion, despite referring to the religion. I went to in itself - … At not that I like the term was a young journalist, the age of 26, I it Middle East – it’s very Of course I was her. interview with for an with Indira Gandhi, I had asked New Delhi. I had a meeting your questions?”, and I “What are she goes: 26. I had prepared my questions, so intimidated, I was only We in India, we never say Middle East. “Why Middle East? We when she told me: That’s said : “Middle East”. Asia. And an appellation that comes from the Occident.” Middle East is from wherever you look say West Asia! at this region: It remains West Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Cairo, and the Emirates. Roughly. Cairo, and the Emirates. Roughly. Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, HUO Turkey, What does the term of Middle East exactly cover? East exactly cover? the term of Middle AM What does solutions, in museums it is still called “Middle-Eastern art”. Just as in bookshops, by the way, your way, in bookshops, by the as art”. Just called “Middle-Eastern in museums it is still solutions, the artists do new idea, because a neologism or a need “Middle East”. We ranged in the section works are has found it. nobody – to this day, with that not feel comfortable

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Jonas Mekas Jonas 5 – December January20 That’s beautifully said. There could be no better conclusion... So many thanks. beautifully said. HUO That’s Joseph at the Université Saint Amin Maalouf Novelist born in 1949 in Beirut, writes in French. Studied sociology director of An-Nahar. In 1975 moved to Paris. in Beirut. Started his career as a journalist and worked as the . Leo Africanus (1986), Samarkand (1988), The Received Prix Goncourt in 1993 for his novel The Rock of Tanius Ports of Call (1991), Balthasar’s Odyssey (2000) First Century after Beatrice (1992), The Gardens of Light (1991), are among his other fictional works. Musée he was curator of the Hans Ulrich Obrist is Co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London. Prior to this from curator of Museum in progress, Vienna, d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris from 2000 to 2006, as well as his first exhibition, the Kitchen show (World 1993 to 2000. Obrist has co-curated over 250 exhibitions since and 1999; 1st & 2nd Moscow Biennale, 2005 Soup) in 1991: including 1st Berlin Biennale, 1998; Laboratorium, 2007; and Indian Highway, 2008-2011. of these include the writings Accompanying Obrist’s curatorial projects are his editorial accomplishments; books he is the editor of a series of conversation Gerhard Richter, Louise Bourgeois and Gilbert and George, and include published by Walther Koenig. Obrist has contributed to over 200 book projects, his recent publications ‘A Brief History of Curating’, The Conversation Series (Vol. 1-20.), and ‘Ai Weiwei Speaks’. The most important thing seems to me to be constantly confident that, despite thousands of years of that, to be constantly confident AM The most important thing seems to me we still stand at the beginning. of culture or history of literature, history and stories, including history Everything remains to be invented. I was curious to know what would be, in 2011, your advice to a young writer? 2011, your advice to HUO I was curious to know what would be, in There are beautiful things, Saadi for example. (...) AM There are beautiful things, Saadi for example. It will be on October 15… (…) AreHUO It will be on October with you? authors from Iran we could invite along there other AM It would be my pleasure. It would be fabulous to have a reading in our garden. HUO It would be fabulous And mainly Persian ones! You know the word ‘paradise’ comes from a Persian word meaning ‘garden’. word meaning ‘garden’. the word ‘paradise’ comes from a Persian know AM And Persian ones! You mainly primordial. of Eden, is rather of paradise, of lost garden, of the Garden It is true that this idea Wow… That’s where the title comes from. Did you make any research on Arab Did you make the title comes from. where It is a whole gardens? That’s HUO Wow… Arabstory about gardens… the feeling that in every human being there is a portion of light, and the name he gave to God was ‘the he gave to God was and the name portion of light, being there is a that in every human the feeling gardens of lights’. king of the

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15 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Berlin Demonstration Series 1 [Fire Cops, Smoke, Television Crew, Police Brigade, Flag] 2002 Five C-Prints each, five prints Edition of 3 Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and Timothy Taylor Gallery, London A revolt against corporate capitalism and right wing politics was in motion JM I favor the flip side of commercial celebratory art, by choosing modesto protest of production culture. that give My aim voice is to present consumer display systems thatwithin. have an auto-critique This can take built place, for instance, by inserting imagessociety, of the namely opposition protestors produced by and capitalist rioters, or by using pieces of shatteredof display glass. forms The installations like shelves and vitrines represent the staticperformative face of capitalism. aspect The of collective consumption is frozen inside the vitrineimages and the of exploited flip side of capitalism factory workers) (like is literally glued to the back ofpower displayed structures objects. The that concealed are the core of alienated production are made visible here. LP How do you define your participation in American and global consumerist culture? JM The recent events of Occupy Wall Street and the mass protests in NorthernEastern African nations confirm and Middle that thereis a threshold for toleranceand in independence. every society. In People Western want society freedom on the other side, the commodificationbeen instrumentalized of political content both has in the media and art. They offertragedy. digestibility The image of a “real and packaging event” has of human to compete with an advert. Mydisseminating works exaggerate information this mode of and consumerism in order to expose it. JOSEPHINE MECKSEPER LP People commonly say that we experience the“The end of ideology”,democracy” and maybe as well. “the end Slavoj of Žižek talks about ‘post-politics’ whereleft there and right is no anymore. difference How do you between vision this topic and how do you envisionlandscape our in global the future? political Josephine, we both grew up during 70s and 80s in countries where politics and political activism where politics and grew up during 70s and 80s in countries LARA PAN Josephine, we both were We myself in the former Yugoslavia. and everyday lives: you in Germany, was at the core of our from childhood memories? you keep What did visions and revolutionary languages. exposed to utopian in Western Germany in the ‘70s, and had an impact on my immediate environment.the Baader-Meinhof Especially Group, which declared war against “consumerfunctionaries society” and the of wealthy the time. The imagery and sentiment of the leftistthe Situationists revolts of had the a large ‘70s, influence but also on how I started out as an artist.documentation One of my first of a 24-hour filmsis happening a with five fellow Cal Artsduring students the on Rodney a rooftop King in Los Angeles riots. The idea was to occupy a space, and inhabitaction it through and accumulation deliberate of spatial and filmic materials introducedbased by on the the group concept members. of the Situationist It was International, who advocatedconstruction experimentation of situations, with the namely setting up environments as alternatives to capitalist order. LARA PAN

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Installation view, Josephine Meckseper, 2009 Migros museum für gegenwartskunst, Zurich Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and Timothy Taylor Gallery, London

Courtesy Art Production Fund Photos: James Ewing 46th Street and 8th Ave, NYC Location: Times Square, The Last Lot, March 5 – May 6, 2012 Presented by: Art Production Fund Manhattan Oil Project RES NOVEMBER 2012 16

19 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER American Mall 2010 Mixed media 120 x 282 x 48 in (304.8 x 716.28 x 121.92 cm) Installation view: New York Armory Show, 2010 Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and Timothy Taylor Gallery, London JM A large window installation at the Contemporary Art Galleryof eight new in Vancouver. self-contained It will be comprised window treatments in the museum’s streetwill front showcase vitrines. an odd combination The windows of black sandals, chrome car wheels,totem sculpture mannequin made legs, out of found a consumer items like coke cans andbackground. ash trays against a black LP What is the next new project that you are working on? JM I was interested in exposing the endpoints of the United States capitalisticcrusades and militaristic since 2001 and demonstrate the anachronistic naturepump jacks of oil exploitation out of context and by taking confronting the oil them with the epicenter of USpropaganda American that entertainment Times Square represents. In this in area of diversionsculptures and become commercialism, the hard-edged the reality of a culture that is definednatural by resources. itscontrol of supplies The presence of of the sculpture in Manhattancrisis and is Times now in our Square back yard, shows just that blocks the away from military recruitingact as monuments stations. to an entire The culture oil pumps fueled and defined by consumption.in a sense They that they are mirror monumental or simulate consumer madness, and yetare un-monumental symptomatic in of how a cultural they pathology that engenders wars damage. foughtenvironmental over oil and irreparable LP Your sculpture at Times Square is as you mentioned a public sculptureHow did with this a real particular application. project come about? JM I am looking at how politics is the organization of power and authoritychanneled and how this into gets forms of propaganda. I am interested in how life in itsforms most normal can be recycled and abnormal and reclaimed. The political aspect of my workof instability only shows itself and in uncertainty. a sense There is no affirmativeappropriated reassurance objects. in the seemingly The fundamental benign principal ofmy work is a conceptualon the world that process we live in. that I see reflects my work as a fragment and window into our present. time,the an archeology of LP If I use the language of contemporary artcriticism, one is temptedcritical, to claim bothand that every every art art is political. is Your work is a reflectioncritique of our political and what landscape. kind of politics What does kind it re-define? of LP As an artist, do you understand you can engage the public in a betterproblems? awareness of social JM My work to various degrees reflects the role ofthe artist in ourdoes current one reconcile consumer the symbolic society. How and the monetary value of culturalmake production? visible real How does economic one and political realities without juststill mimicking a subculture them? or subversiveness Is there really in art? This is the narrativemanifestation behind my and installations. aesthetics of consumption The are ina state of completeI’m transition. making in my The work point is on one that side a critique on the fetishization ofthe to expose object; a new on the history other, of the object that has become a free agent and is now arrangingrearranging and reality for us.

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Installation view, Whitney Biennial: 2010, 2010 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and Timothy Taylor Gallery, London The Complete History of Postcontemporary Art 2005 Mixed media in display window

Timothy Taylor Gallery, London Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Installation view, Whitney Biennial: 2010, 2010 RES NOVEMBER 2012 20

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Natural History 2011 [Inkjet print on canvas; umbrella, metal fixtures; mixed media and acrylic on umbrella; acrylic on canvas on acrylic mirrored MDF slatwall with aluminum edging and plastic inserts] 96 x 96 x 12 1/2 in (243.84 x 243.84 x 31.75 cm) Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and Timothy Taylor Gallery, London

Timothy Taylor Gallery, London Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York and FLAG Art Foundation, New York Installation view, Josephine Meckseper, 2010 RES NOVEMBER 2012 22 Abb.: Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Mit gelbem Bogen, 1966; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012 2 22.08.2012 17:56:28 Uhr Bonn Museumsmeile Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 53113 Info: 0228 77-6260 www.kunstmuseum-bonn.de 9/20 2012–2/3 2013 Nay Wilhelm Ernst Gouaches, Water Colours, Drawings Colours, Water Gouaches, The Polyphonic Picture The Polyphonic KMB_Nay_Anz_RES_prod.indd 1 The work of the New York-based German conceptualist, Josephine Meckseper, deals is a free-lance curator, art critic, and contributing writer for Art Pulse Magazine based in New Josephine Meckseper Josephine with themes of consumerism and commodity fetishism in modernUniversity society. Meckseper of the Arts studied in Berlin at Berlin from 1986–1990, and completedArts her MFA in 1992. at the Meckseper, California also Institute publisher of the of the FAT Magazine, addressespower questions and the propagation about the politics of political of ideas as commodity. Lara Pan York. Born in Belgrade (Serbia), Lara holds a B.A. in Art History(EAC) from in the Paris. École d’Art et Communication JM Werner Herzog’s film “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”. It’s about the recentlyin Southern discovered France which Chauvet houses cave 30000 year old charcoal drawings and human artifacts. LP Josephine, I would like to thank you for this interview andone Is there last question any book or movie that has informed you work lately in an important way? JM After graduating from Cal Arts in the 90s, I started the conceptualby Jean-Paul magazine Marat’s newspaper FAT. It was inspired “Ami du Peuple,” (the most celebrated radicalRevolution) paper of the French and the avantgardist tradition of breaking downwasbarriers a rebellious undertone between art in FAT and magazine’s life. There tabloid style that wasacademic completely and antithetical even commercial to the side of the New York art world. Photographicimages are reproductions subverted into and a montage art with representations of advertisingfictitious news and propaganda items. Sylvère next Lotringer to contributed an essayWWII on The Art art and of Evil, literature about pre- in relationship and post to the Holocaust. Subsequentby Dan Graham, issues Sam included Durant, contributions Mathew Barney for example. LP You have been publishing FAT magazine in the past. Would you tell moreFAT about was offering? the concept that

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27 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER details and emphasizing others, which makes the model’s atmosphereconfusing even yet more fascinating uncanny. A mood results – the empty supermarketcivilization. becomes an allegory The lonely of end-time observer simply looks at that sad part ofwant histo reality see. he doesn’t actually “Loneliness”, says Op de Beeck, “can also be comforting.” Throughartistic the form’s ambivalence theme he first to analyzes the it,then aesthetically enhancesit. Not evenit, in but the never two installations plaintively bemoans entitled “Extension”, one ofthe Op de Beeck’s explicit. rare “Extension forays into (1)” of 2006 is a life-sized, round examinationintensive care room unit, from with the forest a hospital, of stands an for intravenous dripEverything pouches, tubes and is machines. made of wood and steel, i.e., is fake. Life is the onlyTwo real video thing, projections but that is with missing. color effects constantly change the atmospherevoice and innocuous in the room and ambient the odd music can be heard. “Extension (2)” also addresses the spatial extension of the humanwith body, a specific existential function. interior This design time it is a deserted matte black officeof paper and with cardboard a desk and chair, and all illuminated made by cold neonlight. Again we seeseveral too much technology: meters of cable, computers and hard disks. A – naturallyprinter fake – fax next machine to it. is blinking, a Both rooms are deserted, devoid of people, but they seem to be waitingoccupied for us and again. will soon By be us. This is not the first time the minuteness of humantheme existence in art history, was a key we need think only of 19th-century EnglishRomanticism. and particularly The most German famous depictions of human loneliness area wanderer by Caspar in David the mountain Friedrich:gorge, a cross on the summit, chalk cliffs,interested ice floes. in the Friedrich powerlessness was of the tiny individual comparedby to almighty its unlimited nature, power. spiritualized The trained painter Op de Beeck also focuses onpassing melancholy of time, and mortality the and isolation, yet he shows the alienationmodern of the times. lonely And individual here there in is not much left of nature’s unlimited power. In his early film “Places” of 2001 we see a single shot of a landscape with a lake.change, First then the the seasons lake dries up; the landscape dies. Only to then bloomas once a park, more, as but tamed this time nature. His theme is the relationship between naturelandscape and civilization: transformed? How It is an is animated film consisting of manythe different same image. Yet drawings the changes all in the showing pictures are not made by erasing,artist as in South William African Kentridge’s work, but by means of digital cross-fading.“Loss” (2004). It is similar Here the in viewer another looks film, through a window out overby melancholy a city with a park music, at night. the Backed city transforms into a landscape of ruins,disaster. as though after a nuclear Op de Beeck transports Romanticist painting and its themes into contemporarywith the help of complex art. technologies, He does this yet he always and unexpectedlyresorting couples high to and familiar low tech, methods and thus reinforcing the effectnamely, overwhelming. of his most important His artistic most important trick, artistic toolhere is thein the element installations of surprise, that especially from a distance look like building sites,surprised until we enter by something them and are we are familiar with – a picture. As he does not trust the aesthetics of the everyday and suspectsthe capitalist functional ulterior architecture motives even typical in of our day and age, Hansthe Op de “T-Mart” Beeck and his model assistants themselves built over several weeks. They madebays, every laid every shelf, painted cable, programmed the parking all the alternating lightingand yet moods. stylized, Every for, according last detail to the is realistic artist, “everything can look has impersonal.” to be entirely personal, His own personal so that it signature is in the stylizing. It means omitting certain Another medium, another artistic functional building:meter “T-Mart” model of a faceless from shopping 2004, complex the over in the 50-square- twilight. A playgroundin its of thousands consumerism in the as suburbs found of cities around the world. Endlesselevators, aisles, full giant shelves, parking checkouts, lots at the main entrance. Yet Op de Beeck’s hypermarketanyone can look from has above no roof; into the consumerist temple, all in gray. Themodel observer’s a sculpture. It is at eye once a beautiful makes the and frightening sight, monumentsolemn and monster, and devoid elegant, of people. Numerous small lights and streetlampsday progresses. emit alternating In the evening light, the light an animated film is projectedsounds into the can roofless be heard, hypermarket, elevator doors open and close mechanically. The secret of the work is that the hospital shown doesn’t exist. Thereal camera place, is not but exploring documenting computer-generated a animation, conceived,new building, shaped, built a perfect by the form, artist. but with A an ulterior motive. Whatto reality; is the virtual is it imitation, hospital’s relationship copy, simulation? Is it model a or design? A continuationartistic of reality means with or a pure product of the imagination? In 2007 Hans Op de Beeck created the short film “The Building”,hospital. a nighttime The walk camera through crosses an empty a large foyer, glides into an elevator, whoselong doors corridors, close, flies inspects through the canteen,kitchen, patient rooms.of Everywhere public buildings the in typical the age of faceless architecture postmodernism, alwaysand the functionality. same blend of megalomania Everything looks real, yet nothingand is. lighting The appearance harmonizes of the rooms, down to furniture the last detail – all too beautiful to be true. THE AESTHETICS OF THE OBJECT knows no innocence. Everythat we give form things, is also a function, and there is a shape always an ulterior motive behindseduce, this unsettle, – it is intended provoke, to please, embellish the everyday or disappearprovide within the best it, invisible. example of this Artworks concept, though it can also be seen in thefashion, applied arts, architecture, design, urbanism and even so-calledfunctional is innocent, not aesthetics.even the construction No form created by of a shopping man mall, a highwaywhich rest are stop allegedly or a hospital, strictly all of functional. HEINZ PETER SCHWERFEL HEINZ TEXT IN GERMAN, TRANSLATED JEREMY GAINES BY

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HANS OP DE BEECK AND HIS MODEL REALITY REALITY MODEL HIS AND BEECK DE OP HANS 26

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Co-producer: Holland Festival, Amsterdam Courtesy Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin 18 metres diameter x 4 metres high (cylinder) Sculptural installation, mixed media, mist and artificial light 2008 ‘Location (6)’ Hans Op de Beeck RES NOVEMBER 2012 28

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Hans Op de Beeck ‘Sea of Tranquillity’ 2010 Full HD video, 29 minutes, 50 seconds, colour, sound Courtesy Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin; Xavier Hufkens, Brussels; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; Galerie Ron Mandos, Rotterdam – Amsterdam Coproduced by the National Centre for Visual Arts - Ministry of Culture and Communication (F), the Flanders Audiovisual Fund (B), Emmanuelle and Michael Guttman and Le Fresnoy - Studio National des Arts Contemporains

Co-producer: Holland Festival, Amsterdam Courtesy Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin 18 metres diameter x 4 metres high (cylinder) Sculptural installation, mixed media, mist and artificial light 2008 ‘Location (6)’ Hans Op de Beeck RES NOVEMBER 2012 30

33 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Hans Op de Beeck Hans Op ‘T-Mart’ 2004-2005 mixed media, sculptural installation, sound, video projection 8 x 9 x 1.4 meters Courtesy Galleria Continua, Beijing / Le Moulin; San Gimignano / Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna; Xavier Hufkens, Brussels; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; Galerie Ron Mandos, Rotterdam – Amsterdam Hans Op de Beeck ‘Location (7)’ 2011 Sculptural installation, mixed media, sound, light 18 x 8,5 m, 5 m in height Courtesy Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin; Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna; Xavier Hufkens, Brussels; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; Galerie Ron Mandos, Rotterdam – Amsterdam “Artificial snow and winter landscape, that is of course dangerous.that is beautiful I want ambivalence; and terrible something at the same time. I play with a mixture of feelings, and sentimentality The effect is incredible. Op de Beeck’s art may be considered challenging,get to grips with because it. But here you need he has time built to a life-size model of an ideal world;become without part of wanting this work to we simply because we have walked along a corridor,by the and power we are overwhelmed of the panoramic picture he lays before us. He presents toa central us a false horizon, perspective feigns of infinity, transports the trompe-l’œilTrompe-l’œil principle to the spaces third as funfair dimension. attractions were around as earlyhave as the long Renaissance; since been replaced today by they high-tech amusement parks from DisneylandStudios. Op de to Beeck’s Universal unobtrusive, handcrafted approach is farlandscape more subtle: is a metaphor the white for emptiness, of the snowy yet also calls to mind the longingfor the of the far late North, Romanticists as emerged in the late 19th century. As well as kitschcalendars. photographs in This cheap is another difference to Romanticist art:And he Hans takes Op de risks. Beeck has sense a of humor. “Location (6)” is one such model, four meters high and with a diameterof outside 18 meters. the wooden From thestructure is circular in shape, similar to traditionalpavilions, 19th-century with a long annexed panorama corridor. The observer walkscircular through room this with corridor panoramic and reaches windows. a He sits down and looksfoggy, outside, snow-covered into an expansive, landscape, slightly barren but for a few bare trees and frozen waterholes. He lives and works in Brussels, where he bought and renovated a formerOn the workshop ground floor three is a storeroom years ago. and space for models, on the first floor anthen office glass a with wall a kitchen, separating this area from his studio. The livingEverything area is on the second seems floor. sober, tasteful and reserved. Thereinto is his no luxury work. For one here; of his life-size every penny models earned Op de Beeck goes and four assistantsfor two worked months; day a blend and night of bricolage and high tech. Born in 1969 in the Belgian city of Turnhout, Op de Beeck studied art in Brussels,complete a post-graduate going on to degree. Then he spent two years working onin a project Amsterdam, at Rijksakademie where he created his first large installation,lights a street that also intersection inspired his first with traffic film in 1998. He works in all media;also photography, alongside sculpturedrawing and and video installation. Moreover,he has justlikewise written for his “Sea first of Tranquility”, film score, a melancholy Jazz song or, to be moremelancholy precise, the Jazz synthesis songs. Incidentally, of all he has also published a book of short stories. His films aredifferent; they work like loops and absorb us withimages. their powerful, Op de Beeck says the melancholy following of himself: “I am not a filmmaker;and painting.” my roots Nonetheless are in drawing his films are full of cinematographiccomputer effects, animations, false perspectives, complex soundtracks and – in his latest filmprofessional “Sea of Tranquility” actors. The – even dimension of time plays a key role, thein, slow the rhythm playing of cutting with narrative and fading fragments. Only psychologyremains is missing, aloneand drama; and helpless man – helpless is and in the face of the progression of hismortality, existence. that The is Op tragedy de Beeck’s of real theme, but it is too big– and the artist tooits modest name. – to call it by

RES NOVEMBER 2012 32 is born in 1954 Cologne, Germany. He is the founder of Artcore Film in 1985. He Heinz Peter SchwerfelHeinz is a journalist and filmmaker, founder and director of the artists’2010). film The festival retrospectives KunstFilmBiennale of his films (until have been shown, amongYork others, (MoMA), in Paris Mexico (Centre City (Cinemateca), Pompidou), New Helsinki (Ateneum) andCologne. Buenos Aires (Malba). He lives in Paris and What follows is not a continual story, but loosely linked scenes on the ship;kitchen, on the bridge, in the Jazz in the club or cigar bar. The decor is in part real, in partthe designed actors don’t on computer, act, but and present clichés. Op de Beeck is not interested inand stories, once again only these situations, situations and their images are stylized downrestaurant, to the last detail. for example, In the a strange blue mass is served, avant-gardereal molecular Michelin-starred cuisine from chef. a A gourmet feast, no simulation,universe and thus characteristic of this artist, who is of still the entire unknown to a wide publicfellow yet is highly artists. regarded “My works,” among his says Hans Op de Beeck definitively, “alwaysreality. play They with the are reproduction my interpretations of of reality – but are never simulation.” Speaking of cinema, in his most recent work “Film Socialisme” directoruses a cruise Jean-Luc ship as a symbol Godard of postmodern end-time capitalism. The“Costa film Concordia” was shot on no the less, which now lies like a stranded whale off a smallthe Mediterranean. Italian islandin The idyll of spectacular tourist offeringsviolent and end. tamed At the nature same time has as come Godard to a shot his film, Op de Beeck conceivedof Tranquility”, his cruise ship a computer-generated “Sea ocean liner, a hybrid of the “Queendeveloped Mary the 2” (Op project de Beeck during a studio residency in the Breton harbordocks of Saint-Nazaire, the “Queen Mary in whose 2” was built) and a bellicose monster of the deep,à la deconstructivist architect Zaha Hadid. in style Like Godard’s “Costa Concordia”, theallegedly gray “Sea of Tranquility” safe universe sealed is also off an from the rest of the outside world,the ocean, a microcosm where the quietly current crossing present is condensing into bar, restaurant,consumerism spa and club. and A temple leisure of activities in Godard’s work, a melancholyfilm begins island with in Op de an Beeck’s, elderly man whose taking a long shower: the captain in his element, water. Measuring x 21 meters, 11 “Location (5)” is another giant installation,three months which Op in de 2004 Beeck built with two over assistants and 15 students from the RijksakademieIt is a model of a freeway rest in Amsterdam. stop, the likes of which we all know from oursits travels. down at a table The observer at the window and looks down onto a freeway that leadsappears into the distance to disappear and beyond the horizon – the worst cliché you can imagine.anduse them “But time I love and clichés again, because as pictures clichés work likearchetype, archetypes.” in which An accessible we sit down and look out into the artificial world.sunset. The We become only part thing of a picture missingis by the Edward Hopper. Or actors in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. is of course the kitsch form of emotion. The bad thing is, though, thatwatch it works! Disney You just movies need to to see that.” It islong a wayon a thin ridge from Walt Disney’sto Hans Op animated de Beeck’s films installations, but the artist loves such balancingthe potential acts and of kitsch. deliberately He bringsuses Hollywood to the art museum by usingperspective artificial and lighting snow, effects. the central The result is a melancholy thatthat is never has passed, nostalgia but always for something has to do with the present. Our present.

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37 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Michael Riedel Tirala, 2006 installation view, Art Statement, Art Basel, 2006 wall paper, table replica, 2 chairs, computer, Tirala Magazine Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel Michael Riedel Poster Paintings, 2011 installation view “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”, David Zwirner, New York, 2011 Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel t and back Somehow it is tragic and also mythical that the greatest of all media and also mythical that the greatest of Somehow it is tragic the spent most of his lifetime thinking about theory experts who and who ought to be writing essence of images as compared to texts That car accident and died. this article instead of me, had a dramatic He died over twenty years ago, traveling Flusser. person was Vilém home from a lecture he gave in Prague. frameworks. He is quick Michael Riedel is not a fan of theoretical ideas and prefers to to dismiss questions referencing Flusser’s (whether everybody keep matters simple and easy to understand be seen). Whether the pop understands him in the end remains to ‘phased model’ that defines artist Michael Riedel appreciates Flusser’s and imaginary material the image as a two-dimensional, descriptive allows for understanding and text as a one-dimensional entity that n. l of communicatio . The running whee t – From writing to ar ts on tex

alk to exist Michael Riedel’s works always focus on the same theme: How much text information an image can take same theme: How much text information works always focus on the Michael Riedel’s and vice versa. T Ar GRIT WEBER BY MICHA GOEBIG GERMAN ORIGINAL TRANSLATED confronting the screen prints, posters and it is compelling to imagine Flusser in terms of terminology, death Riedel. After performances of Michael publications, lectures, installations and since Flusser’s all, incredible advancements; developments the Internet has seen in 1991, digitalization, image editing and arrive at entirely new images. that have allowed artists like Riedel to In 1999, for instance, the first edition of Adobe’s publishing software InDesign was introduced to the Adobe’s In 1999, for instance, the first edition of this very issue of RES. Michael is used to design One of the newer versions of this program market. he lets the source text – downloaded in Paintings’, his ‘Poster Riedel works with InDesign too. For text box. The chosen text is based on one of his advance from the Internet – flow into the program’s the artistic material so to speak – exhibitions is published online. This is the basic information, his The source text used this way is complemented by communication through art – about his own art. to a of the text and thus ignores it a color surface in the form of a circular segment that covers parts the limitations between text and which makes the reader encounter again and again certain extent, sections to serve him as a matrix, surface. Riedel prints out this format several times, using the color sheets. He has previously papered as an orientation applied to composing a poster from the individual for instance, Zwirner in New York, entire exhibition walls with those posters – in his last show at David He also screen-prints them onto large-scale canvases. It seems and at Bischoff Projects in Frankfurt. ultimate transcription, its coding into logical symbols with a as if Riedel would counter the world’s

© Michael Riedel/ Jason Schmidt Photo by Jason Schmidt, 2011

Portrait of the artist RES NOVEMBER 2012 THE RUNNING WHEEL OF COMMUNICATION WHEEL RUNNING THE

TALK TO EXIST TO TALK 36

39 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Michael Riedel Vier Vorschläge zur Veränderung von Modern, 2008 Installation view “Stutter”, Tate Modern, London, 2009 (left: No. 14, right: No. 3) Pigment print on canvas 275 x 250 cm Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel Michael Riedel Vier Vorschläge zur Veränderung von Modern (31), 2008 Pigment print on canvas 275 x 250 cm Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel Filmed Film Trailer (detail), 2008

“The Michael Riedel. The response of the art point is that the show only exists when it is reviewed,” says Artworld is what turns art into something that is meant by the term. pop- in post-modern times, pop art, and foremost from language. Andpop art – or however else our era wants to be titled –arises first this more culturally pessimistic – who – though much Flusser, is where Riedel indirectly agrees with Vilém world. perceivable, multi-dimensional regards written language as a kind of filter between man and the he is an analytical one who, in the fashion of an impish positivist, While Riedel is no critical artist, dispute, so that ultimately painting would prevail as the supreme discipline among all the arts. As prevail as the supreme dispute, so that ultimately painting would optimistically: “The he comments Riedel is an artist and not an IT expert, act of applying color on the is hard to believe. his bearing as an artist-hero over criticism.” At however, that, canvas rules over text, could just as easily be After Painting” all, Riedel does not investigate the essence of painting. “Poster produces an original, but it is and which Printing” because Riedel uses screen-printing, called “Poster painting artist is not so much about of this Frankfurt-based remains a printing method. No, the quest as about the essence of information. And texts and images are based on. As information is what both works he continues exactly along that line at which the in his current Riedel places color on top of text, works, he puts a form to information, texts. In his series of spectator can watch how images turn into Anwhich transforms it into an aesthetic event. of this intense consideration overview of earlier results zur Text” “Kunste The show is titled Schirn in Frankfurt/Main. is currently being prepared by Kunsthalle a satirical wordplay on the German is language. It a title not translatable into any other (Arts on Text), on Art). The title itself already reveals one of Riedel’s (Texts zur Kunst” art theory publication “Texte the original material just barely in a way that leaves work strategies: to deform something existing old and new material. In any case, from the discrepancy of recognizable so as to create a punch line (both 2012), two Paintings” Point as well as “Power Paintings” “Poster Schirn presents Riedel’s Kunsthalle Also and text information. series that are based on digitalized image on display are the “Printed and (2008), which – like the “TiralaUnprinted Posters” Art (2006) – are displayed as expansive Statements” or the center of attention: Internet wallpapers. In a sense, byproducts of actual art production become helps make art as their content, book publications that no art environment can do without any longer classifiable and recognizable as art.

© Michael Riedel Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York 154.9 x 152.4 x 149.9 cm Video projection on cardboard; 8:05 (loop), color, sound, Video projection on cardboard; Filmed Film Trailer, 2008 Michael Riedel RES NOVEMBER 2012 38

41 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Michael Riedel Untitled (Vertical), 2011 Power Point Painting Silkscreen on linen 230 x 170 cm Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel Michael Riedel Untitled (Slide Show), 2010 Poster Painting Silkscreen on linen 230 x 170 cm Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel

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43 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Michael Riedel Oskar-von-Miller-Straße 16, 2000-06 Oskar-von-Miller-Straße 16, Frankfurt am Main Photography Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel Michael Riedel Oskar-von-Miller-Straße 16 (replica), 2003 Installation view “Kontext, Form, Troja”, Vienna Secession, 2003 Zwirner, David and Riedel Michael Courtesy New York © Michael Riedel Michael Riedel Untitled (Poster “Kunste zur Text”), 2012 84 x 118 cm Offset print Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel

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45 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Michael Riedel Untitled (Michael S. Riedel), 1997 Photography Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel ab n l ctio a produ SSe as tra ller S ar-von-Mi works with the conditions of modern, technology-driven everyday life, life, everyday modern, technology-driven the conditions of works with it has the aesthetics it until, in the end, forms, and deforms structures, him. that satisfy Osk Riedel are the materials that Michael Information and communication 16”, which he use for years. “Oskar-von-Miller Straße has put to productive in 2000 artist Dennis Loesch at the same address co-founded with fellow exemplifies popular and most vibrant project that is probably the most Frankfurt, walking distance from the original Portikus his art practice. In Städelschule, art academy space of Frankfurt’s the legendary exhibition performances, a production space for exhibitions, Riedel offered not only but also duplicated – Kitchen), (Friday concerts and “Freitagsküche” were that and fellow artists – entire art events together with his friends A good or at other places around town. at Portikus originally staged either silver the disposed remains of example of this is when they recovered just a few and recreated the show foil used for a Jim Isermann exhibition Straße. on Oskar-von-Miller hundred meters down the road at the house not Loesch and Riedel did Instead of the original floor covering, which they installed a replacement consisting of white manage to get a hold of, also deals with the connection balloons. The “Gert und Georg” campaign George When Gilbert and and distance between original and reproduction.

On the occasion of his first solo exhibition in 2005 at David Zwirner, where Neo Rauch’s paintings were where Neo Rauch’s On the occasion of his first solo exhibition in 2005 at David Zwirner, constructed for the preceding show, previously shown, Michael Riedel did not only utilize the panels exhibition and called views of Rauch’s which he decorated with black-and-white prints of installation catalog, though, in his personal manner of structure “Neo”. Riedel even used the text from Rauch’s is is listed with its own kind, all data and order: all letters and punctuation marks are grouped – each without any information (if any information of a sort remains), it is a in this order complete. However, approach shows text as material, as a module, as a system. completely new kind. Riedel’s nt eve n to the aesthetic n to communicatio From informatio what is most striking is the mix of appropriation, sampling, concept, Looking more closely at Riedel’s and the incursion of everyday life in delimitation of the genre coding and decoding, and most of all, the seem like handouts Paintings” Point and “Power Paintings” Compared to the performances, “Poster art. Andfor the market. Riedel’s are even named after the fact that his publications, such as “Perlstein”, into a strategy for his creative process. art market and its doings collectors, turns this acceptance of the critics find themselves in a tight spot: why should the artist remain outside of the This is where Riedel’s tower pragmatism has just proven to production mechanisms, which could be so useful to him? Smart over the sublime... presented themselves and their colorful wall panels at Portikus, the British artist duo was followed the wall panels at Portikus, presented themselves and their colorful hired by Riedel and Loesch. When and Georg, a pair of actors at a distance of only five meters by Gert and Loesch staged a final “Anecdotes due for demolition, Riedel the building of the production lab was other stories of the place that they seven people told each Conference” at which, for two whole days, it was copied in fabric in full size the building was torn down, remembered from the past years. When at that point. that still existed Fine Art Fair and displayed at the Frankfurt

© Michael Riedel Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York 70.4 x 43.4 cm Stamping ink on paper (paper bag) Michael S. Riedel, 1997 Michael Riedel RES NOVEMBER 2012 44 Michael Riedel Printed and Unprinted Posters, 2003-08 Offset print on paper 546 x 376 cm Courtesy Michael Riedel and David Zwirner, New York © Michael Riedel Grit Weber, born in Dresden in 1970, studied art history, art education and cultural anthropology in Frankfurt/ Main from 1995 to 2001. Besides being involved in numerous art projects, she frequently writes exhibition Since reviews for a variety of newspapers and art magazines, including “Kunstbulletin” and “Journal Frankfurt”. 2006, she has been editor-in-chief of “artkaleidoscope. The big chat, and after all we are providing our share to that here too, is part of the works, as is the and after all we are providing our The big chat, Flusser who has the last word. No, as soon as this it is neither me nor Vilém Ultimately, prayer of belief. he can move it onto the level of mere text has been published Riedel will be able to find it on the internet, and can texts in times of digitalization, information via source codes, which are behind both images and all? he – the artist – has the last word. Or is it the image after turn it into an image. So consequently, With his actions, Riedel neither positions himself at the center nor does he regard himself as an at the center nor his actions, Riedel neither positions himself With to follow him along observer has The but takes another step closer toward the world. intermediary, I am also the artist who watches but now an artist who does art, this way: “I have moved beyond being the position of the observer which also changes doing as art, himself doing art and understands this [sic]. This quote can be found in one himself while creating...” who now has to watch the artist watch volumes, in which he included a lecture on his works from 1997 to 2010 self-published of Riedel’s ignores the rules of reading texts and punctuation marks. Riedel without periods, commas or any other of the lecture (includes noun slips was spoken at the moment concentrates entirely on the word as it The text puts the emphasis on to move on to the next image). and errors, repetitions and instructions perceived as an to be more precise, text is is conveyed or, the information and not on how information followed. aesthetic event because its rules are not

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49 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Ana Torfs Anatomy, 2006 Dia- und Videoinstallation Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf. Erworben durch die Gesellschaft der Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2010, © Künstlerin Danica Dakic´ New York Diary, 2001/2002 Videostill Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf © Danica Dakic´ / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011 L is taking place in Düsseldorf: on view A N TIO P CE X Krystof is responsible for quite a few exhibitions centeredaround video art. The “Big Picture” series, however, seemshold a special to position, as it brings together not only high- quality artworks in a carefully thought-out architecturallayout, designed by Stadler Prenn Architekten Berlin, butalso highlights some of Krystof’s most important curatorial concerns. Already, the first part of “Big Picture” concentrateson ‘cinematographic installations’– that is, on a certain technique and presentation rather than a particular subject.(s. RES issue 7) However, all three parts have titles: Places/Projections, Time Zones, and Scenes/Figures. What wastrue for the first ‘Big Picture’ is true for the whole series – its special interest in the medium and the technique is evident in aspects which are worth mentioning even briefly.Co-curator Maria Anna Bierwirth is a video conservator,therefore, each work is described in detail, indicating its format, duration, sound, number of channels, projection size, Y E RUL NG T ETHI M Y, SO Y, L T N E

URR

C BARBARA J. SCHEUERMANN J. BARBARA is already the third part of an exhibition series that is exclusivelyinstallations dedicated to including large-scale video, and even better, time-basedexhibition art. my To surprise series, and “Big delight, Picture”, this is not being shown in a museumbut in focusing the Kunstsammlung on video or new media, Nordrhein-Westfalen, a well-establishedcontemporary museum art for modern with a strong and emphasis on its own collection of modernistvideo and time-based masterpieces. artworks Usually are not the main interest of institutionsin Düsseldorf such there as this is curator one. However, Doris Krystof at work, who has beenchallenges pursuing for years of reflecting now, the and presenting (that is curating) video art. installation dimensions, etc. – particulars that you missFor in the surprisingly first part, you many could video find art all shows. of these details in the cataloguearchitectural along with floor models plans of the and exhibition layout. This not onlyexhibition, emphasizes the spatial but also shares aspect of the the complexity of installing works,new conceptualization which is a process that requires and construction a each time, dependingrespective on installation exhibition instructions space. This way, and time-based the artworksartefacts, become apparent which as complex can be challenging and special to install. There areyet no new there publications exist comprehensive for part II and short III, guides and that lead the visitorArchitecturally, through the dim exhibition not much change space. has been done to the space betweenApril part 2012, I and part replaced III, the which, shorter in part II and is now on view until the end of January 2013.

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011 Courtesy Galerie Rolf Hengesbach Leihgabe Dieter Kiessling, Düsseldorf Videoinstallation, 6’30’’, ohne Ton, loop Mädchen, 2002 Dieter Kiessling RES NOVEMBER 2012

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51 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Hanne Darboven Evolution >86< © Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf Photo: Walter Klein, Düsseldorf McCarthy, Paul Peter Paul, 2001/02 aus Gips in Körperabguss aus Gips und Ton, Gussmodell aus Fiberglas, Körperfragment Kartonschachtel, zwei Transportkisten 200 x 600 x 700 cm © Paul McCarthy Photo: Achim Kukulies, Düsseldorf 2005 ´, Hanne Darboven, Lucinda Devlin,Jochem Hendricks, Martin Honert, Nan Hoover, On Kawara, c The other pole of the wide range of time-related works in this partprofoundly of the exhibition unsettling, is marked by somewhat the crazy work of Korpys/Löffler,its strictly contemporary “The Nuclear (today!) Football” documentary (2004), with imagery. Thevisit work of George gathers Bush W. images to Berlin, from the on May state 22 and 23, 2002. Captured fromdefinition thepress box using digital a high- camera, power rituals and regalia, asTegel seen Airport, at the President’s his reception arrival at Bellevue at Berlin Palace and his departure,precision. are The depicted secret with suitcase, meticulous known as the “Nuclear Football”,leaves is of particular the President’s interest side. The as it scenes never at the airport are underscoredAirports by Brian (1978). Eno’s An additional Music for inset, a voice that mysteriouslyaccessory whispers, in this turns political the beholder act, which into ends an with the German government’sthe US invasion of refusal Iraq. The quirky to participate selection in of documentary imagesthe specific of the “real” sound and event, text along unhinges with the reliabilty of the imagery, “truth”. documentary historical and thus dissolving the values of These characteristics are also true for Dieter Kiessling’senlarged video installation class photo taken consisting in 1904 at of a girl’s an school. It is presented asroom. an image Using projected an image into editing the program, the artist produces an effectindividual by which, face gradually, stands out as every an extreme close-up. The result isand an insistent disappearance. rhythm The of appearance fact that the image is over a hundred yearsthe old girls’ is not only appearance evident and in the serious, determined looks, unusualalso “demonstrates for theirage. Dieter the ageing Kiessling of the technical image media.” Dorisphotograph Krystof is in black explains, and white, in “while keeping the with the technical developmentsthe course of of time the time, has accumulated and over numerous scratches and the like,historical he orchestrates scene the using frozen today’s digital media as a moving image.” Experiences of time, and recollections of the past were the focalparts themes do, in featured part two, installation which, asall works from the museum’s collection.in film and Alongside video projects, moving the ‘time exhibition images’ included variety a explore of installation-based how time is visualized works that and experienced. An explorationjuxtaposed of various with narrative experiences arrangements of time are of historical time.Daki The artist list included Danica Dieter Kiessling, Korpys/Löffler, Angela Melitopoulos,Samuel Beckett. Jason Rhoades, In allHito threeSteyerl, parts, Ana selected Torfs and loan works complementedcollection. the thematic Ana Torfs’ guideline work, of the “Anatomy” (2006), for instance,after was purchased the Belgian for artist the museum had her in 2010, solo show. “Anatomy” is based on documentsregarding from the the “crown murder of case Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg”Communist in 1920. Party The founders had been murdered of the German by members of the Armed Forcesin 1919. The of the court Weimar hearings, Republic however, proved to be a mock trial,acquittals resulting in and nothing minor punishments. more than Ana Torfs thoroughly analyzedShe then selected the 1,200 25 statements pages of case given files. regarding the circumstancesactors ofthe dressed deaths, in contemporary and had young daily clothing read them out loud.slides The from videos the Anatomical are juxtaposed Theater with of the Berlin Charité clinic.slides Torfs in her often works uses – exemplary black and white of the necessity to use the term “time-based”“video art”– artwork evoking rather a unique than atmosphere that radiates calmnon-allocatable nostalgia. and timelessness, with a sense of

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53 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Ahtila, Eija-Liisa Talo – The House, 2002 Three-channel video installation, color, sound, 16-mm-film on DVD 6-channel-Dolby-sound Duration: 15’00’’ © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012 Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten Eine Ausstellung im ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst Reinhild Hoffmann: „Bretter“, 1980 b/w Photography Photo: Silvia Lelli © Reinhild Hoffmann Interesting enough, there is another exhibition, just a coupleon documenting of hours away, that and aims presenting to get a grip the performative within an institutionalitself is on stage, as well frame. as place/space, Again, exhibiting time and figures – that makes threewhich out connect of three this aspects project to the “Big Picture” in Düsseldorf. It makesof exhibitions perfect and sense projects that the dealing wave with performance/dance/bodyon how time-based in art and/or is followed ephemeral by reflections artworks are presented.Media, And is usually the ZKM, at the forefront the center for Art of these and projects. “Moments. A Historyis conceived of Performance as a “live exhibition” in 10 Acts” on the history of art performanceparticipations in dance and by fine performance art with superstar Marina Abramović, Graciela Carnevale, Simone Forti, Although, the show had opened some days before, at the time of my visit, oneAhtila’s work, Eija-Liisa “Talo – The House” (2002), was not yet on view. However,labels its room was and ready, all. with As the work curator explained, due to the advances in technologycreation, since there the were artwork’s technical issues to be solved – mind you, thisthan is a video ten years. piece that So is the not empty older room, waiting for the artwork to inhabitfor the challenges it, functions curators like a monument face when they want to show technology-basedcontent and intention. art properly, true to its The exhibition architecture works well for this presentationroom too. after The viewer another, but enters there one are darkened always ways out into brightness, andusual the rooms black don’t boxes. feel like Nan Hoover’s the body videos from the 80’son TV monitorsGirardet’s work as well and as Christoph Matthias Müller’s wild yet meticulously“Phoenix selected and edited Tapes” (1999). compilation The work entitled, is based on footage from Hitchcock’srituals films, tracing and gestures cinematic – kissing, crying, fighting, smoking,meaningless, waiting – until and all even gestures silly, then seem empty, full of pathos and importance“Avalanche” again. Hipster (2011) Keren also uses Cytter’s theatrical piece roles and rituals. Once again,narrating her now well-known which is “characterized way of by temporal, linguistic,says, and “the spatial work disjunction”, brings together the curator a variety of recurring motifs:an apple, Dostoyevsky’s a disco mirror ball, The a girl Brothers eating Karamazov. In keepingpenetration, with Dostoyevsky’s the film sketches psychological out a multilayered study of the dramaat the same of ordinary time breaking relationships, withthe traditional narrative model ofcreates the feature a captivating film.” piece Hence, of narration Cytter and play. In its entirety, “Big Picture II” provided a wide range of viewsand on forms. time through While different the first part meanings of the exhibition had an impressiveasserted visual its conceptual power, the second strength, part particularly via theDarboven. demure worksThe by On work Kawara by the latter, and Hanne “Evolution ‘86’” (1986), large-scale a of framed sheets installation of paper, a skeleton with and hundreds a toilet bowl among other things,is now kept part its position of “Big Picture and III” too, considering that the installingandmanpower. requires Yet there is much no objection time, effort against its inclusion, as it beautifully“Roles/Figures”. fits into the theme The third and most recent installmentquestion: of “Big Picture”What is presentation? lays its foundation The concentrated on the selection articulatesandthe self in contemporary ideas about role, art. identity It includes works by Vito Acconci,Keren Eija-Liisa Cytter, Ahtila, Hanne Peggy Darboven, Buth, Jeanne Faust, Christoph GirardetHablützel, und Nan Hoover, Matthias Paul McCarthy,Müller, Stefan Imi Knoebel, Tony Oursler, Pia Stadtbäumerrange of artists, – again, a wide techniques, themes and, well, times of when they were created.

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55 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten Eine Ausstellung im ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst Simone Forti: Re-Enactment „Face Tunes“, 2011 Farbfotografie / Photo color Foto, ©: Jason Underhill Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten Eine Ausstellung im ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst Anna Halprin: „City Dance“, 1976–1979 Videostill Photo: Buck O’Kelly © Anna Halprin Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten Eine Ausstellung im ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst Anna Halprin: „City Dance“, 1976–1979 b/w Photography Photo: Buck O’Kelly © Anna Halprin

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57 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten Eine Ausstellung im ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst Channa Horwitz: „Movement #2, Sheet C, 2nd Variation“, 1969 39 x 33 cm / 15.5 x 13 inches, Fasersjpgt auf Papier / Pen on paper © Aanant & Zoo Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten Eine Ausstellung im ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst Sanja Ivekovic: „Practice Makes a Master 09“, 2009 Performance (performed by Sonja Pregrad) Photo: Barbara Blasin © Sanja Ivekovic Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten Eine Ausstellung im ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst Lynn Hershman Leeson: „Roberta on her Way to Work“, 1978 20 x 25.5 cm Photography Digital print Courtesy Galerie Waldburger, Brüssel Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten Eine Ausstellung im ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst Lynn Hershman Leeson: „Roberta’s Dress“, 1976 Photography Chromagen-print 20.4 x 25 cm Courtesy Galerie Waldburger, Brüssel Moments. Eine Geschichte der Performance in 10 Akten in 10 Akten Performance der Geschichte Eine Moments. Kunst Neue für ZKM | Museum im Ausstellung Eine Steps of Del „Roberta Climbs Leeson: Lynn Hershman 1976 a Date (San Diego)“, Hotel to Meet Coronado cm 19 x 23.5 Photography Chromagen-print Waldburger, Brüssel Courtesy Galerie

RES NOVEMBER 2012 56 23/08/12 11:52 ab www.twitter.com/abmb | |Miami Beach |Miami www.facebook.com/artbaselmiamibeach | By invitation only invitation By | 1999, www.artbook.com 1999, 32, [email protected], www.artbasel.com 31 Tel. +1 212 627 212 +1 Tel. | December 5, 2012 5, December |

The International Art Show – La Exposición Internacional de Arte de Internacional Exposición La – Show Art International The Basel CH-4005 Ltd., (Basel) Exhibition Swiss MCH Beach, Miami Basel Art 206 58 +41 Fax Vernissage order Catalog Art|Basel 6–9|Dec|12 Twitter and Facebook on us Follow ABMB12_RES_190x250.indd 1 works as curator in Berlin and Brussels. In Berlin she runs the art project space Barbara Scheuermann J. Babusch. Before she moved to Berlin in November 2008, she had workedat Tate Modern, as curator London, of contemporary and earlier as assistant art curator at K21, Düsseldorf,Her doctoral and Haus thesis der Kunst, (2005) Munich. analyses narrative structuresworks by William in contemporary Kentridge and Tracey artworks Emin. In her curatorial using as example workon video and her and writings installation, she mainly questions focuses of narrativity, performativityof postcolonialism and and gender multiculturalism. as well as on the discourse As independent writerstill and contributes, art critic she has to contributed, numerous international and art magazinespublications. as well as to exhibition catalogues and other “Moments” offers much to see, listen and learn, and this is great. However,will of the visitor it demands to be drawn the strong into the concept and follow the partly wonderful,idealistic ideas original of the artists. and Otherwise, it could probablythe leave most elaborate you cold. exhibition Because this is what will evennever be able to provide: thehuman particular beings are atmosphere in one space and when something two happens. It’s a great idea and an ambitious concept that requires participation,“witnesses” involvement, rather than and beholders, to borrow the term from artistuntil one Anna understands Halprin. the It takes setting some time of minimal-style stages,and tables,wires installments (so many wires!), of projections TVs, recorders and texts on the floor, the wallsSpeaking and everywhere of texts: do texts dealing else. with theoretical issueswhile really the art need to be itself so dry is sometimes and boring, refreshingly clear and straight,example? like “Pay Anna attention Halprin’s toyour “Scores”, senses, for leave an impression.” Isn’twith that the what neighbors. it’s all about? Play Or: with “Rap the kids.” Just stop for a second and imagine! Anna Halprin, Reinhild Hoffmann, Channa Horwitz,Iveković. Lynn Hershman As an exhibition Leeson “in and progress”, the brillant the project Sanja shows andpresentation develops new of live formats acts. of During museal the eight week-long exhibition project,ten central a scenic stages act of of around dance and performance history unfoldedfocal before points a public. is the performances One of the key and works by women who have consciouslytransgressing been thematizing, and critiquing the genre boundaries betweensince the dance, 1960s. performance, and visual media

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61 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Leisure Centre 1992 C-print, Edition 4 of 12 25.7 x 25.5cm (10 1/4 x 10in)

ECTS of David Shrigley is his constant exploration P NG AS ATI N OST FASCI E OF THE M N O BURCU YÜKSEL BURCU YÜKSEL Let’s start by talking about your exhibition,Gallery. “Brain I’m Activity” curious as to whether at the Hayward this exhibition made you lookan back artist? and assess your career as art or not. I think one has to go to a contemporary art exhibition withsuspend an open all mind, expectations and that contemporary art is not allowedShrigley to be light and funny. explains And as himself, it is not possible to please everybody himself. for and he wants to make works Shrigley’s work creates different responses amongst artthose journalists who delightfully and critics; enjoy the exhibition there are and those who question whether what he does is This kind of dark humor with a dose of violence is very typical of Shrigley’sa surprise to see work. that he is So heavily it is not influenced by Surrealism, andone of names his favorite Rene Magritte artists along as with Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchampdrawings and Philip he refers Guston. to In Magritte’s his famous motifs, the bright greenTreachery apple and the of Images pipe of “The (This is Not a Pipe)”, 1929. Similarly, the installationin different of hundreds shapes and of insects sizes made of found and odd shaped pieces of metalswarm recall through the ants paintings that of Dali. But whatever Shrigley may be working on, it always has his witty commentaryHe has come a long way and since dry finishing humor. Glasgow School of Art in 1991 andsimply selling drawn his quirky cartoons in pubs to now having a major solo show in Londonfans with thousands following of him on Twitter and Facebook. His show “Brain Activity”the full range at the Hayward of his work that covers aim to provoke surprise and laughter,tomb with stone the headless with a shopping ostrich, list, a stuffed Jack Russell holding a placardand the that tiny says word “I’m sculpture Dead” LOOK AT THIS, placed outside in the terrace.Friends, His animation 2006, is about New social relationships, where a little squarefriends man loses and when all he his finds square a colony of circle men, they welcome him withhim opens into a circle arms like but shave themselves. of different formats to express himself as an artist. Not only ischoice this reflected of media but also in his the varied type of projects he is involved in which rangenewspaper from music cartoons, videos to publishing books to doing tattoos, in additionsculpture to of course and his animated drawings, films. He even tackled live performanceSpoon, his “sort-of with a recent opera” work based Pass around the a faux TV cookery show thatand was will performed make its London in Glasgow premiere in May.

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INTERVIEW WITH DAVID SHRIGLEY DAVID WITH INTERVIEW 60

63 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Lost 1996 C-print, Edition of 12 39 x 49cm (15 1/4 x 19 1/4in) I always made sculptural work and always had a camera as a young teenager, taking photographs. teenager, I always made sculptural work and always had a camera as a young My attitude I had to learn how to do it. Making animated films is something that came much later and I delegate what I’m not skills anyway, towards different media is that because I never had any real craft This way I am necessarily know how to act. in the sense that a film director doesn’t able to do myself, to things and I’ve never been afraid able to do a lot of different works. I’m just not very good at making say it. I was never trained to work in any particular media. If I had studied painting in art school, it would media. If I had studied DS I was never trained to work in any particular Art.have affected me but I studied Environmental to think about the work and I was always encouraged draw that really display any craft skills, I couldn’t art in general rather than craft too much. I didn’t my default Drawing is the center of what I do, it’s well and could never really make things well either. I want to me allows me to say anything practice, something I have done my whole life. It comes natural to say quickly and easily. How did your interest develop in all the different media and formats you are working in? Is there one different media and formats BY How did your interest develop in all the particular that is more exciting for you? I have always been interested in making art as a young child. Drawing and making objects was art as a young child. DS I have always been interested in making of art in terms of the art world was which I realized my liking something I really enjoyed. The point of saw about 14. We Britain in London when I was which is now Tate when my father took me to the Tate, At art. kinetic artist. that moment I became really interested in a Swiss an exhibition by Jean Tinguely, I grew up Leicester is quite a small through books. The city Until then my experience of art was mainly gallery was a big deal. Another comparable so my visit to London and visiting the Tate provincial city, of Museum with my parents when at the National History experience I had was when I saw the dinosaurs I went to a football match and I was into dinosaurs, then I was 5 years old. So for awhile I was really I do still like football football player. I wanted to be professional really into football for quite a long time, art from the age of 14. I was really into but dinosaurs wore off a bit and then eventually Do you remember your first experience and interaction with art? and interaction with art? BY Do you remember your first experience I graduated in 1991 from Glasgow School of Art.DS I graduated in 1991 jobs until 1996 I had five years of doing odd Then age, that is a common experience at that know whether I don’t living as an artist. not really making a art school when I was to go to I decided I was pretty happy to give up work. whether that is unusual. realize there was such I didn’t in the sense that think I wanted to be an artist a young kid. I don’t my time spend be an art student, and notion that I wanted to go to art school occupation. I had the do. Just seemed like an exciting thing to making art. Could you talk about your transition from art student to become a full time working artist and how a full time working your transition from art student to become BY Could you talk about to go to art school? and when did you decide I think most artists are quite resistant to the idea of having a retrospective. I’m not of having a retrospective. resistant to the idea artists are quite I think most DAVID SHRIGLEY to look most artists want do, to look back. I think that you want to really something it’s entirely sure I something that space wasn’t quite an important of a retrospective in in a way the idea forward. So It’s element. is a retrospective there whether we reached a compromise to do. But I guess really wanted lot of which that quite recent work, exhibition towards quite bias in the survey show, and there more of a shown. been haven’t

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Anti-Depressants 2002 C-Print Exhibition copy 28 x 41cm (11 x 16in)

12 x 154.7 x 5.9 30.5 x 38cm (12 x 15in) Edition no. 1 of 10, C-Print Balloon 2002 RES NOVEMBER 2012 64

67 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER New Friends 2006 Animation, Edition 3 of 6 + 1AP Running time: 1 minute I don’t know, it’s very difficult to see how people see you but I’m not a comedian. I do have a My work is not autobiographical at all and I think that is pretty apparent even without meeting When I made the pop video for Blur, which is the most well-known, I got asked by the animators The interesting thing about working out of the art world is that you reach a bigger audience You must come across people who don’t really understand your humor, what would you say Your work is always humorous, are you the same way in your daily life? Are you mostly serious How do you position yourself in relation to your works? Does one of your many characters How did you end up doing the music videos for Blur and Bonnie Prince Billy? Was it something As we are talking about your collaborations, in the past you have done cartoons for newspapers, them? BY liking of lighter side of life, like to laugh and joke a bit. DS or do you make a lot of jokes? BY me. The voice of the author in my graphic works in my books, I am playing a characterextent to because a certain the statements that character makes are not the typeacceptable of statements to make that as would a human be being. I’m not interested in autobiography,my work. or being the I’m center mystified of when people are interested in what I actuallyabout got it, to say. most When artists you think are like that. Artists like Tracey Emincenter are quite of their unusual, artwork. who want I want to be in the to make universal statements, not necessarily personal statements. DS represent you? represent BY who were commissioned to make it and they wanted to collaborate withthe me. I didn’t band much. really Bonnie know Prince Billey, however, was quite different,Someone it at was the very record Do label It Yourself, knew lo-fi. that I really like the band and theyvideo. asked me It’s to do also their because music I got to know a lot of people in the world of music since Glasgowmusic town. is a big I don’t think I will do another music video, I’m not veryquite interested a hard commission to be honest. in It’s a way. And the music people, to put it bluntly, are not the greatestbusiness to do with. It was an exercise for me and I’m glad that what pays my mortgageworld. As is the long fine as I can art be a fine artist and make my living that way, I’m happy. BY DS and that is really nice. I learn a lot from the people I’m collaboratingalso with worked on these in projects. advertising, I illustration and cartoons for magazinesbecause you and reach ad campaigns. a larger audience It’s nice but I want to keep the center of what I do in thebecause art this world is where you can do whatever you like. It’s not the same if, sayillustrations, you are making certainly it’s always to a brief, and although it promisesand exercise, to be an interesting it’s notsomething project I would want to do all the time. Unlessthat I’m I can’t offered say no! so much money that you proposed? DS BY and music videos, and more recently collaborated with a composer and directorPass the Spoon.for your What libretto, has been your experience in working with peopleWas it challenging outside the fine or art enjoyable? world? Would you want to do again?

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69 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Ostrich 2009 Taxidermy Ostrich 195 x 160 x 95cm (76 3/4 x 63 x 37 1/2ins) Insects 2008 Steel and paint Sizes variable

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71 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Gravestone 2008 Granite, gold leaf 122 x 61 x 10cm (48 x 24 x 4in) Yes, I have a collection of art. If I had more money, I’d buy more art. I also have a collection of rulers! I’d buy more art. If I had more money, I have a collection of art. DS Yes, a collection. AndI just really like rulers and I got a lot of them. So I think that constitutes I use a lot of them, so they are everywhere in my studio. BY Do you collect objects, art? Are you a collector yourself? The show from Hayward is also travelling to Cincinnati and then to San Francisco next June so I’m going to San Francisco The show from Hayward is also travelling to Cincinnati and then and maybe work another piece of can be adapted space and see how the show to look at the San Francisco be quite in October 2012. That is going to work on site there as well. Then I got another show in Manchester a different show, much more an installation. And if I’m still alive, I will try to more works after that. I’m working on a new book, which is going to be published by CanonGate. They also published my last to be published by DS I’m working on a new book, which is going so quite a big independent publisher, done with them. They are book but that was the first book that I’ve and there is publicity involved who got me a big advance, this was the first time I had a literary agent my previous books, this book has a theme. Unlike and all that stuff. and Facebook and I have to do Twitter you have to tell them what the book is going to be about. work with the agency, the way these things That’s a change, something else to do, something that because it’s It is sort of a self-help book. I’m quite enjoying this year. It will be published in September or October different. What are you working on at the moment? BY What are you working on at the moment? I think it is much more intuitive than that. It is not often that I make work about certain things or It is that. DS I think it is much more intuitive than and over again but my working method the same things over certain themes. The work is probably about my It’s I do a lot of drawings in a day. and I just fill the page. is very intuitive. I try to set myself projects is something that comes naturally the work so the subject matter strategy to not to think too hard about certain things at certain I try to make Having said that, I’m not really in control of it. and intuitively. times, as part of one project. What are your sources of inspiration? Do you explore a certain theme for extended periods or is it much BY What are your sources of inspiration? more intuitive? I’d say not, the strategy to making art is that it has to be for yourself firstly and you have to entertain firstly and you have art is that it has to be for yourself the strategy to making DS I’d say not, else. make works for anybody can’t You work really interesting and engaging. yourself and find the people, and that is not to certain specifically what an ad agency does, trying to speak Otherwise it is like If you read the reviews of it yourself. else to like it unless you like expect anybody can’t how I work. You of critical responses to you will see that there is quite a panorama Hayward Gallery, my exhibition at the it. So you are conscious of the audience whether you are making an animation, sculpture, or cartoon for a an animation, of the audience whether you are making BY So you are conscious the work? Does that affect the outcome of newspaper. I don’t think you can please everybody or make art that everybody likes. I made quite a good attempt quite a good attempt likes. I made everybody or make art that please everybody think you can DS I don’t artists in my than a lot of audience to a wider popular or accessible work that is a bit more in making and what I do is cartoons, The big part of better. is necessarily any mean the work This doesn’t generation. doing accessible than somebody more work will be kind of medium, your are working in that when you example. work for very dry conceptual

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73 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER I’m Dead 2010 Taxidermy puppy with wooden sign and acrylic paint Overall: 70 x 15 x 25cm (27 1/2 x 5 7/8 x 9 7/8in) Look at This 2012 Bronze 16.5 x 164 x 3.5 cm (6 1/2 x 64 1/2 x 1 3/8in)

RES NOVEMBER 2012 72 ORGANISED BY FOCUS TURKEY FOCUS SOLO PROJECTS: LATIN AMERICA FOCUS OPENING: YOUNG GALLERIES HIGHLIGHTED ARTIST EXPERTS FORUM PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS INTERNATIONAL COLLECTORS PROGRAMME ARCO 2013 190x250_ing.pdf 1 10/10/12 08:25 10/10/12 1 190x250_ing.pdf 2013 ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair K C M Y CM MY CY CMY received her M.A from New York University. She is currently working at Derek Johns went to Glasgow School of Art. Although he works in various media, he is most widely known for There are a lot of things going on and lot of artists in Glasgow but there aren’t enough big important spaces of artists in Glasgow but there aren’t There are a lot of things going on and lot There are several exhibitions that I’m looking forward to seeing. I haven’t actually seen the Jeremy Deller seen the Jeremy actually to seeing. I haven’t that I’m looking forward several exhibitions There are Do you try to keep up with the art world? There are so many events and exhibitions to go to, fairs to attend, events and exhibitions to go to, fairs to with the art world? There are so many Do you try to keep up Turkish born Burcu Yuksel Ltd, dealers in Old Master Paintings in London as Assistant Director, Projects. Special and also works for PERFORMA, New York on David Shrigley his witty drawings and humorous cartoons published in differentalso directed books, magazines music videos, and works newspapers. in sculpture He has and animation. He lives in Glasgow. I’m disciplined as I need to be and work as hard as I have to. You have to be disciplined to a certain extent have as hard as I have to. You DS I’m disciplined as I need to be and work that are made upon you. Otherwise I’d get stressed out and couldn’t to meet your obligations and the demands days off. easily 6 days a week. If I’m lucky I get two do the projects I’d like to do. Normally I do 8 hours a day, my mind is really awake at night and I tend to Sometimes I stay up really late and work and I quite enjoy that, get a lot done. When you are working, do you have a daily routine? AreBY When you are working, do you have a daily you disciplined? I quite often have a day off on Saturday. I do yoga and go running if I’m feeling energetic. I might go to I do yoga and go DS I quite often have a day off on Saturday. which is always nice. I always try wife. Sometimes we go on a holiday, football matches, go for dinner with my always enjoy catching up on seeing on my days off, I go to exhibitions not to do anything when I’m on holiday. into bands and contemporary music and Glasgow is great for that. art works. I see a lot of live music, I’m really BY Do you ever take a break from art? And to relax? if you do, what do you do that show art and most of the things happen on a small scale. And when Glasgow International Festival takes on a small scale. And that show art and most of the things happen when Glasgow International Festival quite understands how successful the think the Scottish government place, more events take place but I don’t and Scotland and the amount of people paying attention to itworld of contemporary art has been in Glasgow festival. There are lots of young artists in Glasgow, I suppose I am anfrom all over the world, particularly the a not one based around a really good vibrant art scene here but it’s older generation now in my forties, and really interesting things are the artist-initiated projects. type large institution. The Kunsthalle DS Does it help being outside of London? What is the Scottish art scene like? of London? What is the Scottish BY Does it help being outside Not so much but I usually have a list of exhibitions that I want to see, particularly if I’m in London. And to see, particularly if I’m in London. have a list of exhibitions that I want DS Not so much but I usually There is nothing more pleasure because I love art. I always try and go see exhibitions whenever I’m travelling, like reading a good It’s happy. It makes you exhibition, at least a good exhibition anyway. than going to see an good movie.book or watching a do you try to go and see everything as much as possible? do you try to go and BY DS What Academy. at the Royal David Hockney exhibition I’d quite like to see the the Hayward and show yet at mind is going blank. know. My I seen? Gosh I don’t else have What was the last exhibition that you saw that had an impact on you? that you saw that had the last exhibition BY What was

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77 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER for RES Magazine Shirana Shahbazi

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87 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER C-print C-print C-print C-print C-print C-print C-print C-print [Farsh-09-2005] Shirana Shahbazi [Octopus-03-2008] [Stilleben-35-2010] Copyright the Artist [Komposition-01-2011] [Komposition-51-2012] [Komposition-52-2012] [Komposition-50-2012] [Komposition-14-2011] [Komposition-13-2011] Handknotted rug, wool on silk Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich

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89 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Gilbert & George ‘London Pictures’ White Cube: Mason’s Yard, Bermondsey, Hoxton 2012 © the artist Photo: Ben Westoby Courtesy White Cube O, in Regent’s Canal, G S A K EE E OF W UPL A CO East London, not too far frommy house, the torso of a young woman – a soap actress – was discovered in the water. I was out running along the canalside with a friend when she told me the news (I had been out of the country for a few days), because we unexpectedly came to an area that had been cordoned off with police tape; forensics investigators were The tweezing, drains. the through white-protective-suited, combination of a high heart rate, pumping the blood heavily through my ears, and the horrific reportof her death, suddenly made me want to stop running and throw up. And inevitably, in the oncoming days, which saw her brother confess to the murder, this extremely violent, senseless act took on the scale of the grim London story, which repeatedly arises

LAURA MCLEAN FERRIS Gilbert & George, for decades now, have been fully intertwinedregular with the fabric presence of London, in East London, and a striding along the road in smartTurkish tweed restaurant suits to Mangal in which they II; the dine every day. This is not, asdetail: is now well known, ever since an incidental Gilbert & George, in 1969, submitted themselvestheir appearance, to the world as routine ‘living and sculptures’, demeanour in the city has been an intrinsicand its character. part of Rule their one work, of Gilbert & George’s Laws of the Sculptors‘Always (1969) is that smartly they must dressed, be well groomed, relaxed, friendly,the many polite years and in complete in which control’. they have Over been simultaneously appearingin their in the streets work, they and appearing have come to seem as though they embody something– part ancient gargoyle, about the part city hero, part prophet – almost like the urbanembodiment equivalents of England to the bucolic, seen in the rural character of Johnny Byron in Jez Butterworth’s(2009), which has had play a successful Jerusalem run in the city the past few years.activity, In contrast the changing to all the frenetic landscapes of gentrification or recession, these artists and their routines in conversations with friends and acquaintances for a period.narrative Like the canal is carried itself, the along event-as- in conversation, eddying and flowingLondon, a bright, until the vibrant shock finally city though subsides. it is, has always been home to grizzlyseep out horror of its dark corners stories, and which make their way into news, conversation,are unavoidable: and history. The from headlines the front pages of newspaper posters outsideout at tube shops stations, to the free Londoners papers given consistently participate, albeit sometimesstory of their passively, city. in a shared

HOXTON SQUARE, MASON’S YARD AND KONG HONG 9 MARCH - 12 MAY, WHITE9 MARCH MAY, CUBES - 12 BERMONDSEY © the artist 2 March - 5 May 2012 ‘London Pictures’, White Cube Hong Kong

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91 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Gilbert & George Teacher Straight 2011 118 7/8 x 124 13/16 in. (302 x 317 cm) © the artist Courtesy White Cube Gilbert & George Robbery 2011 89 x 74 13/16 in. (226 x 190 cm) © the artist Courtesy White Cube

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93 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Gilbert & George London Crime 2011 118 7/8 x 124 13/16 in. (302 x 317 cm) © the artist Courtesy White Cube Out of this system of constraints emerges a narrative of the city theobvious past six years, thing to and say about the most this is that this picture is shockingly and– nearly unremittingly every headline violent refers to violence save for a huge swathe that obsesses over money – The final element in the artists’ presentation system, in the bottomgrid, left-hand is a kind of heraldry corner of each or hallmark, which features theMuslim name of the for those picture: headlines Teacher, displayed Killer, in the ‘handwritten’ font,word and ‘straight’, the title followed for each of the by the simple, straight-lettered font style:Below Teacher each Straight, title is an image for example. of the Queen’s head taken from a coin, differentcovering in each picture, all the ages and of the Queen as she has been pictured on the Britishimages currency of her as a young – from woman, those to a more aged presence that graces our coinageimage of today. the Each monarch, taken directly from a coin itself, has been subjectedwear and tear. to different Though the metallic degrees of rendering of her face gives herimages, a statue like as though presence she too, like on the Gilbert & George, is an embodimentin of most an ancient of the images London her spirit, face is covered in pocks, scuffs, gouges and scratches.is the date, the artists’ Below her head familiar joint signature and the phrase:Over ‘A London Them’. Picture: It’s Written All Gilbert & George divided their collection of headlines into categories,appear over and based over on key again: words ‘killer’, that ‘woman’, ‘death plunge’,into ‘gang’ a grid formation, or ‘school’, and placed so that London them itself, and the interests of its reportage,size of each panel. would Each dictate headline the is stripped away from its white background,white border leaving around only each a short word. In each collection the ‘key’ wordleaps is out presented at the viewer in red, over so that and it over again: ‘killer’, ‘killer’,plain background ‘killer’, ‘killer’. from which they Instead are ripped, of the white the headlinesstare sit on images sorrowfully of Gilbert out & George, of the pictures who in sets of distorted, abstractedstretch from images. the pairs’ In one heads, image, in fingers another they gaze balefullystereotypical out from behind lace location curtains from which – the onlookers to an incident twitchsome images behind the but artists don’t intervene. are pictured In as part of a kaleidoscopic,tone nightmarish of their faces and pattern hands – the and peach the whites of their eyes are the only colourssea of monochrome picked out imagery. in a Occasionally we glimpse fragments of Londoncorporate, – a shopfront, reflective some architecture, and the sash window of a rundown Victorian terrace. It’s this kind of embodied presence that appears in Gilbert & George’sPictures latestset (2011), of works, which were London displayed this spring across all fourin London, White Cube and galleries: one in Hong Kong. three For this epic series of works – 292 ‘pictures’artists’ created systemic, in the gridded style – the pair devised a systemnewspaper of presentation advertising based on nearly sheets 4000 that they stole from display boardsshouty over statements the past are six years. meant to entice These Londoners into buying a newspaper,headline displaying of the day – depending the main on the brand of the title some headlinesclean are printed font, whereas in a straight, others have a ‘handwritten’ style. Becausetheir of the limited language space on has the developed posters, into a very specific system of shortcutsblunt instruments, and the words often rushing act like straight to the key points of interest, with little space for nuance. remaina constant: it’s difficult, in fact, to think of many othersindeed, (the Queen she does comes appear to mind, as a presence and, in the artists’ work described below).

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95 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Gilbert & George School Straight 2011 148 7/16 x 250 in. (377 x 635 cm) © the artist Courtesy White Cube Gilbert & George Preacher 2011 59 7/16 x 50 in. (151 x 127 cm) © the artist Courtesy White Cube

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Gilbert & George Knife Murder 2011 59 7/16 x 50 in. (151 x 127 cm) © the artist Courtesy White Cube

Courtesy White Cube © the artist 59 7/16 x 74 13/16 in. (151 x 190 cm) 2011 Mystery Gilbert & George RES NOVEMBER 2012 96

99 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Gilbert & George Racist 2011 59 7/16 x 50 in. (151 x 127 cm) © the artist Courtesy White Cube This is a depressing scene. And yet, at the same time, it doesn’t seem to be a straightforwardcritique of media hysteria and tabloid reporting. Laid out inseems this way, a little something, clearer. if not The the stratification truth, of society is particularlythe superrich; apparent – the and vast the poor, gulf young between and angry, who erupted in riotingit’s in all the there, city last really: summer: ‘it’ written all over it’, as the artists point out. And, as Gilbert & George, The British press has been a focus of international interest oversurrounding the past year, due to the a British scandal newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch,shut The down News amid of the a scandal World, which over was phone-hacking. This interestnewspaper, is coupled with The the Daily fact Mail, that another recently overtook The New York Timesglobe, as the due primarily most popular websiteto its salacious on the coverage of celebrities (mainlyetc.). female: A piece by ‘Bikini Lauren Collins Beach Bodies’ in the New Yorker (April 2) explainedas seen the from culture afar, comparing of British it to tabloids,the US’s Fox News. British television,a dignified Collins writes, affair, while ‘tends print to be is berserk and shouty.’ It’s preciselyatmosphere this kind of that ‘beserk arises and when shouty’ Gilbert & George corral togetherof it as so many an equivalent headlines. to Los One Angeles might think Plays Itself (2003), being rather,constant ‘London dialogue Reports that on Itself’,spirals a inwards to affect as well as to effectcity. And changes what emerges and atmospheres from this in exhibition, the subtle as repeatedchest, blows is to the a picture head, or of stabs a city obsessed in the with money, sex and violence. It’s two murdered young men, both aspiring actors: Ben Kinsellaunnamed and Rob Knox in the headlines (the latter often and, significantly, referred to asin ‘Potter one of the Harry actor’, Potter because he films), had a part who were both fatally stabbed bywhom other I noticed teenagers recurred in 2008 most frequently and in Gilbert & George’ssoap panels: actress Kinsella’s in EastEnders, sister was a pretty the same show which featured the girlhad found taken in a small the canal, part whereas in The Bill; he a police drama. While it mightconnections, seem perverse in part to bring their up such small fame and youth is a significantstories element become in the reported way that their and obsessed over. Handsome young men (or women)front of them with everything who become tragic poster-figures in for the media and the public. It’s melancholic to see the characters that appear again and again withinhaunting this presences period: those that become shorthanded into a single name: ‘Kinsella’,‘Baby P’, ‘Damilola’, ‘Lawrence’, ‘Lucie’, ‘Milly’, – chiefly the names of teenagersviolently and young killed, people who have and been who begin to stand for a particular concerngang or problem: violence, racism, teenage stabbings, paedophilia, neglect and failings in socialconstantly work. Their dredged names up, in and our images grubby are historical canal, whenever these issues are mentioned. National obsessions and the prejudices used to sellpapers are revealed,that is not as often well as a specific employed lexicon in speech: ‘’thugs’, ‘tots’, ‘paedos’. There’steachers, much concern aswell as traces over schools of the screeching and rollercoaster of financialthrough over events the past that six the years. city has In been Money First we find: ‘£93BNLooms’, to Save ‘Free One Bank’, £5 Bet for ‘£44m Every Reader’. Cuts Axe bankersbonuses, misspent public money. The artists’ themselvesat this have finding expressed – realising their surprise that even a category of words that seemedinvariably softened, accompanied such as ‘lover’, by violent were words, ‘stabbed’, ‘killer’, ‘shot’, etc.

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Gilbert & George Stabbed to Death 2011 118 7/8 x 100 in. (302 x 254 cm) © the artist Courtesy White Cube

Courtesy White Cube © the artist 59 7/16 x 100 in. (151 x 254 cm) 2011 Jail Gilbert & George RES NOVEMBER 2012 100

www.wdw.nl

Surplus Authors Exhibition Group 2012 28 October until view On 2012 on 6 October Talk Artist in Flotron, Marianne by Work Pirotte with Philippe conversation 2012 on 25 October Talk Artist Angela by Assemblages and Maurizio Melitopoulos Lazzarato

The Mountain in Art in Art Mountain The The Humans Humans The Singh Alexandre in progress A production 2013 until 6 January on view monthly Causeries With Aristophanes 13 September: 11 October: and Literature Artificial Moons 15 November: in Theater) (Lighting is a writer and curator based in London. She is ArtReview’s editor at large anda Laura McLean-Ferris critic for the Independent, and has contributed to many otherMonthly, publications, the Guardian including and Another Art Agenda, Magazine. Art who profess to love London, stand behind the headlines, gazing outdark sombrely, stories, watching its murky the city’s subconscious, swirl around them, as thoughcoming they all could along. have Gilbert seen it & George, unlike so many artists, areof the attuned city’s underbelly: tolistening they to murmuring listen to that world as they stride throughroutine London giving every them a chance day, their to register incremental change.can For it’sunderstand only by doing so the that city, one it’s problems and its wonders. And that reallyfestering is loving glory. a city, in all its

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105 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER tiles. Hanging from the ceiling are hundreds of small, rounddifferent LED lights colour that flash configurations. on and off in The pinpricks of light ininfinite the otherwise reflection darkened in the room mirrors, have an giving the viewerspace, the experience broken only by ofpoints being of in light a seemingly in the darkness. endless People tend tostand willfully there, pausing, getting staring, absorbed in the rhythm of lights changingRoom” their may be another colours. visualisation The “Infinity of the Mirrored above mentioned work’s titleInside, “I’m one here, seems but to Nothing”. dissolve in the play of light and colour, transforminginfinity, into nothing and yet, except still being there! The mirror installation is the most recent work in the Tateexhibition. “Filled The with second the part Brilliance of its title, of Life”, has a joyful sound and isDid somewhat the artist unusual choose for these Yayoi words Kusama. on purpose as an optimistic conclusion,words of as the life-affirming exhibition list? One doesn’t last know but likes to imaginepowerful that Yayoi Kusama, andextraordinary this fearful, artist, has been “filled with the brilliance of life”. In this vein, we are easily reminded of another artist, who worksinstallations, with overwhelming Pipilotti spatial Rist (b. 1962 in Grabs, Switzerland).first Rist’s major retrospective, work is currently titled on view “Eyeball in a Massage”, which wasGallery, previously London. shown Since at the emerging Hayward in the international arthad scene numerous in the mid-80’s, solo and group Pipilotti exhibitions Rist has and is one of the most celebratedtoday. video The artists video “Ever working is Over All” (1997), in which a beautiful womansmashing walks dreamily the windows down of parked a street, cars one afteranother, wonthe in Premio 1997 and made2000 Pipilotti at theVenice Rist Biennale famous overnight. Like manyvideos other of “Ever her early is single-channel Over All”, already classic a by now, involves thesound, manipulation speed and and colour, distortion involving andplays immersive, with of increasingly fantasy became that and environments reality. multimedia in Rist’s space laterarchitectural work began to encompass high-definition video projections, and audio-visual installationssounds conceived with specifically psychedelic images for particular and spaces. Hence, audience. her experience she for is able to create a total sensory When you enter the show at the Kunsthalle Mannheim, first,“Massachusetts you probably see the giant Chandelier” work (2010) made from underpantsprojection of the artist’s of moving friends colorful and on them, images. a Underpants, Rist says,part are of the the body temples is very of the sacred, abdomen: the site “This of our entrance into the world,and the the centre location of sexual of the exits pleasure of the body’s garbage.” This is basically Rist’sor “it’s approach both life in and a nutshell, death, both beauty and ugliness.” And this is exactlyso very what intriguing, makes her work the missing disctinction between gooduseless. and bad, Everything pretty and ugly, useful has its and value (or none) and everythingsurely is worth takes a closer an intimate look. And look at all Pipilotti kinds of things Rist with a special focuswithout on plants shame and body or parts, timidity. On the contrary, Rist seems to find beauty inthe everything; glory of life, approving “approving the wonder that we exist – that is a good aim,”Perhaps. she says. But Is if, that after corny? you have seen one of Rist’s works, your heart“brilliance is not filled with of life”, joy about you the might like to check if you have one. It’s probably the mix of beauty and ugliness that prevents Rist’s ofteninstallations dream-like from video becoming too easy for the viewer. One moment one is enjoying the sight of a M hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and O R ATES F N I G I R T O R Y A M “Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life”shift (2011) from is a great viewer example to participant. for this The walls and the ceilingfeatures of the room are a shallow mirrored, pool of water. and Visitors the floor walk through the room on a walkway made of mirrored “ Kusama’s work is not only about making a certain mental dispositionIt’s perceptible rooted in the art to the of viewers. happening and the environment of the 60’s whenthe New Kusama York art was scene, part though, of a rather alienated one as a young female artistfirst explored from Japan. installation She in her 1963 solo exhibition “Aggregation:at Gertrude One Stein Thousand Gallery Boats in Show” New York. The show consisted of a single“Accumulation” work, one of Kusama’s sculptures — a rowboat covered in soft, phallicspace, protuberances the walls of which — presented were covered in a in 999 reproductions of a photographThis installation of the same sculpture. has been re-installed at the Tate’s show and it beautifullythe 60’s with its calls notions up a sense of space, of body and repetition. The Tate exhibitionof Kusama’s covers work, the beginning whole span with her smaller paintings and drawingsrecent colorful from the 40’s paintings to her most of patterns, some of which assemblethe certain environments kinds of folk that art. intrigue It’s probably visitors most, as they seemlesslythe position feel themselves of viewer to transferred participant. from BARBARA J. SCHEUERMANN J. BARBARA For the most of us, it might be difficult to imagine the fear of a girl perceivingenvironment, her familiar suddenly and permanently, dot-bedecked. One mightinto get one of a sense Kusama’s of it when overwhelming entering installations, such as “I’mdomestic Here, but Nothing” room completely (2000/2012), covered with a fluorescent dots, currentlyLondon on view as part at the of Tate a thorough Modern in retrospective of Kusama’s work. “Shechildhood is somebody who evidently onward has suffered from from various neuroses, anxieties,thoughts, so there depressive is an admittance episodes, of a kind suicidal of fragility in her mentallikes health, to put it,” or Tate however curator Frances one Morris explains, and continues,demonstration “I think it’s an of the incredible way she has brilliantly controlled that. She’sweaknesses ploughed the strengths that she was born and with the into her work.” obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings,”interrelating Yayoi Kusama says, her art explicitly practice and mental state. For the last 40 years,is best known theartist for her(b. absorbing, 1929, Tokyo), colorful who environments overlaidby choice, with in a mental polka institution dots, has been living, in her native city Tokyo. Kusama clearlyis an expression states that her of “artwork [her] life, particularly of [her] mentalhad disease.” suffered Reportedly, from hallucinations, Kusama, as a child, in which the entirety of herrepeating surrounding patterns space of dots. was covered with

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107 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Yayoi Kusama Boats Show One Thousand posing in Aggregation: Kusama 1963 Installation view, New York 1963 Gertrude Stein Gallery, and © Yayoi Kusama Studios Inc. © Yayoi Kusama Yayoi Kusama 1965 Courtesy of Victoria Miro Gallery, London and Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo © Yayoi Kusama, courtesy Yayoi Kusama studio inc. Photo: Eikoh Hosoe Yayoi Kusama Self-Obliteration No.2, 1967 © Yayoi Kusama and © Yayoi Kusama Studios Inc.

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109 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER 1. Pipilotti Rist 1. Pipilotti Arb Foto: Giorgio van and Courtesy the artist Hauser & Wirth Digesting Impressions, 1993 2. Pipilotti Rist, Audio-Video-Installation STAMPA, Basel/CH Installation view, Foto: Walter/Spehr & Wirth and Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser Luhring Augustine, New York 3. Pipilotti Rist Administrating Eternity, 2011 Audio-Videoinstallation. Installation view Pipilotti Rist: Augapfelmassage, Kunsthalle Mannheim 2012. 4. Pipilotti Rist: Lungenflügel, 2009 Audio-Video-Installation (Videostill) & Wirth and Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser Luhring Augustine, New York 5. Pipilotti Rist: Lungenflügel, 2009 Audio-Video-Installation (Videostill) Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine, New York 6. Pipilotti Rist, Massachusetts Chandelier, 2010 Video-Installation Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine, New York 7. Pipilotti Rist, Selbstlos im Lavabad, 1994 Audio-Video-Installation (Videostill) Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine, New York 8. Pipilotti Rist, Vorstadthirn, 1999 Audio-Video-Installation Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine, New York 9. Pipilotti Rist, Ever Is Over All, 1997 Audio-Video-Installation (Videostill) Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine, New York 6 7 8 9 4 2 5 3 1

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111 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER 10. Pipilotti Rist, I Couldn’t Agree Rist, I Couldn’t 10. Pipilotti 1999 With You More, (Videostill) Audio-Video-Installation Rist, Hauser & Wirth and Courtesy Pipilotti New York Luhring Augustine, I´m Not The Girl 11. Pipilotti Rist, 1986 Who Misses Much, Sammlung Kunsthalle Mannheim & Wirth and Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser Luhring Augustine, New York 12. Pipilotti Rist: Eyebal Massage Installation view, Hayward Gallery Lap Lamp, 2006 & Wirth and Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser Luhring Augustine, New York Foto: Linda Nylind SKIN – 13. Pipilotti Rist, YOGHURT ON VELVET ON TV, 1994 Installation view, Hayward Gallery Foto: Linda Nylind Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine, New York 14. Pipilotti Rist, YOGHURT ON SKIN – VELVET ON TV, 1994 Installation view, Hayward Gallery Foto: Linda Nylind Courtesy Pipilotti Rist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine, New York 15. Pipilotti Rist Lungenflügel, 2009 Audio-Videoinstallation, Loop 15:36 min. Installation view Pipilotti Rist: Augapfelmassage, Kunsthalle Mannheim 2012. Foto: Cem Yücetas 16. Pipilotti Rist Lungenflügel, 2009 Audio-Videoinstallation, Loop 15:36 min. Installation view Pipilotti Rist: Augapfelmassage, Kunsthalle Mannheim 2012. Foto: Cem Yücetas 17. Pipilotti Rist Lungenflügel, 2009 Audio-Videoinstallation, Loop 15:36 min. Installation view Pipilotti Rist: Augapfelmassage, Kunsthalle Mannheim 2012. Foto: Cem Yücetas 18. Pipilotti Rist Massachusetts Chandelier, 2010 Videoinstallation, Loop 5:32 min. Installation view Pipilotti Rist: Augapfelmassage, Kunsthalle Mannheim 2012. Foto: Cem Yücetas 16 17 18 11 13 15 14 10 12

RES NOVEMBER 2012 110 courtesy Kai Middendorff Galerie www.kunstverein-bremerhaven.de courtesy Kai Middendorff Impressions from the Streets 2011 Öl auf Leinwand Ø 80 cm Öl Impressions from the Streets 2011 Ekrem Yalcindag Ekrem the Streets from Impressions 2012 - 7. Okt. 2. Sept. Bremerhaven Kunsthalle Barbara J. Scheuermann works as curator in Berlin and Brussels.Babusch. In Berlin Before she runs she the moved art to project Berlin in November space 2008, she had workedat Tate Modern, as curator London, of contemporary and earlier as assistant art curator at K21, Düsseldorf,Her doctoral and Haus thesis der Kunst, (2005) Munich. analyses narrative structuresworks by William in contemporary Kentridge and Tracey artworks Emin. In her curatorial using as example workon video and her and writings installation, she mainly questions focuses of narrativity, performativityof postcolonialism and and gender multiculturalism. as well as on the discourse As independent writerstill and contributes, art critic she has to contributed, numerous international and art magazinespublications. as well as to exhibition catalogues and other Pipilotti Rist Pipilotti Augapfelmassage Massage) (Eyeball Kunsthalle Mannheim 25 March – 24 June 2012 Yayoi Kusama Modern:Tate Exhibition 9 February – 5 June 2012 While Yayoi Kusama often states that she wants to obliterate the worldare with “a her way to polka inifinty” dots – which – Pipilotti Rist aims to find new perspectives“The on our idea irrevocably is,” she says, “that finite now we’ve lives. explored the whole geographicalare the new, unexplored world, pictures spaces or into films which we can escape.” Both artistsconventional seek alternatives perception to the of life, one through a decidedly limitedthe repertoire other, through of forms explorations (dots!), and of endless forms and things. Yet,experience both offer the something viewer a chance special: to his/her body within an environmentthe artist’s thoughts meant for and him/her, experiences connecting directly and intuitively,those rather of the viewer. than intellectually, Obliterating, with escaping, being filled with the brillianceyou call it, it’s happening of life – no matter in this how world and makes an experience to remember. Major themes in Rist’s body of works consist of being human and being present.wants us Since to be comfortable the artist while being human, alive and present, shecushions builds large and pads sofas to lie on or provides while watching “The Lobe ofthe Lung” (2009),installation for instance, on show a large-scale at the Kunsthalle Mannheim. The ideo consists(tulips,of tongues, images of organic piglets) that material seem incredibly familiar and utterly unknown at the same time. well-formed breast, the hollowof a knee or the bright colour of a flower,that and beautiful the next, red one wonders is of blood (probably) if and if that obscure form mightBefore be an anus you (it most know likely it, the is). image has turned into something else altogether.

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115 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Frank Stella at the Kunstmusem Wolfsburg Photo: Sebastian Wulf a ll te nk S a e of Fr uvr n the oe t i n oi ng p i urn l t a rm k to the fo ac Following the MoMa show, Stella increasingly turned toward Cubismparticular and Constructivism, Malevich. At the in end of this creative period, Stellain the stated: externals “Nothing of my life. much has But changed while I was painting the Protractorto the pictures, end of something I felt I was coming in my work. really I did want to change, and wantedwent to do things beyond that the methods and systems that underlay my paintings untilwork could then. be contradictory (...) That the new and good is what makes the life of an artistRubin, exciting.” Frank (William Stella, 1970 S. – 1987, p. 14) Out of these considerations, StellaVillage developed Series, the Polish named for the wooden synagogues built betweenwere the destroyed 17th and 19th century during the that Nazi occupation. Other than themes coveredTatlin, William by Malevich, Rubin also Popova detected and a literal connection to Constructivism:Constructivism “The has also relationship to do with Stella’s to literal building up (or ‘engineering’)object.” of the pictorial In the period following on the Polish Village Series, Stella increasinglywith works such worked as theIndian into the room, Bird Series, the Moby Dick Series,sciocco the Cones senza and paura” Pillars (1985). In like the 1980s, “Lo Stella commented on these works:talk “Mathematicians now about figures of 1.78 dimensions or 2.3 dimensions,” (...)you “Pictorial have two-dimensional space is one in which forms tricked out to give the appearanceso that the space of three-dimensional you actually perceive comes ones, down somewhere in-betweenthe flat surface ... I work but away I still from don’t want to be three dimensional; thattwo is, totally dimensions literal but . . . more short than of three so, for me, 2.7 is probably a very goodRubin, place to be.” (William Frank Stella, S. 1970 – 1987, p. 77) William S. Rubin describedMaximalism the expansive, to baroque distinguish reliefs them as from the minimal painting of his early days. This Maximalism is transferred to the architecturalarchitect setting. Frank Philip Stella Johnson had been since friends the 1950s. with Stella the gave his “DraftGarten for Dresden: mit Kunsthalle’” the space ‘Die Herzogin from September 1991 to his friend Johnson,version who of the realized draft in a personalizedthe garden of his Glass House. Shortly afterwardsStella designed – on his own assignment – the “Chapel of the Holy Ghost (model)” (1992). Stella is also befriended with thearchitects Richardand Santiago Meier Calatrava. For his latest project, “The Michael KohlhaasCurtain” (2008) in the Mies van der Rohe building of Neue Nationalgaleriein Berlin, Stella collaborated with Calatrava: There, Stella’s monumentalpainting was combined with a supporting construction by Calatrava. Following the Polish Village Series, in the 1990s Stella focusedon the his motifs work of the Brazilian beach cap and cigar smoke, which angles and various he from aspects documented and photographed had and transferred into three-dimensional painting, the building issue: the became models. painting a “I got building hungbeginning; up in the of kind a became building—that the building sculpture, the building leitmotif. I was looking to get away from that by using smoke as a sourceof image and form but unfortunately I didn’t, because that ended up being the problem of building the smoke. (Laughter)“ (Frank Stellainterview in an with Saul Ostrow, BOMB 71/Spring 2000, ART) B A CONVERSATION WITH FRANK STELLA E OF 34, Frank Stella who profoundly influenced numerous later generations G

N 1970, AT THE A I TEXT IN GERMAN. TRANSLATED MICHA BY O. GOEBIG AND CHRISTINE LIESE-SCHIKANEDER TRANSCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW SABINE BY BOEHL The “Circus of Pure Feeling for Malevich” is presented on severalsaid that tables. abstract “Kazimir art was Malevich able to convey once pure feeling … However,on what both I do Malevich here is play a trick and Alexander Calder – Calder made a three-ringsquare tables! circus – what (Laughs)” we do is a four- (Frank Stella in an interview withLeaving Maddalena this presentation Kröner, 2011). behind, the visitor reaches a cabinetStella. with Here, works designs on paper by Frank have been swiftly jotted down on paper with marker,crayon, pencil, and color ball crayon. pen, pastel These “Drawings are diagrams ...there,” It’s a beginning, as Stella noted a plan, at the press I go from conference on his paper works. All ofon his loan paper from works the Kunstmuseum are Basel’s Kupferstichkabinett thatWorking had published Drawings “Frank 1956-1970” Stella as early as 1980. On the first floor, from which visitors can get a clear idea of the structurearchitecture of the museum’s as well as the positioning of the works, Stella’s architecturalHis “Chinese models Pavillion are shown. (model)” (1993) and the “Constantini Museumare (model), displayed Buenes on pedestals Aires” (1999) opposite the painting “Basra Gate I”(1968) Basra from the Gate refers Protractor to the four Series. gates of the City of Bagdad. So in fact, an earlyindicates painting an whose architectural title theme actually encounters tangible,glance at the architectural semi-circular designs. composition A cursory of “Basra Gate I,” with orangegrey at the center, and dark followed green, by evokes the impression of a draft of a model models. cityarchitectural in its juxtaposition with the In this exhibition, works such as “Requiem for Johnny Stompanato,”Black 1958, Paintings works from Series his such as “Moro Castle” and “Tuxedo Junction”geometrical are joined by works early like “Ilfafa II,” “Bafq,” works from theGate Protractor I,” “Paradoxe Series sur le comedien,” such as “Khurasan 1974, some from the Diderot Seriesrelief and his works, beginnings and works in from the Polish Village Series likecomplemented “Ostropol III,” by works 1973. produced This line-up during the is time Stella turned towardsPolish relief Village works: Series, besides there the are examples from the Indianthe Bird Moby Series Dick Series (Bonin (The Night Heron, Grand 1976), Armanda (IRS, No. 6,1X),il sale, 1989), 1987) the Cones and the and large Pillars sculpture (Bene “The come Broken Jug. A Comedy (D#3)2007. (left handed version)” of of abstract artists had his first retrospective at The Museumthe of Modern Kunstmuseum Art in Wolfsburg New York. In 2012, has staged another retrospectivesince – the 1995. most comprehensive FrankStella personally one chose the works on display and decided about the set-up.

A VIEW AN OF EXHIBITION AND FURTHER DIMENSIONS FURTHER FRANK STELLA-THE 2.7TH AND AND 2.7TH STELLA-THE FRANK RES NOVEMBER 2012 114

117 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Frank Stella Bene come il sale, 1987 Mixed media on aluminum 238 x 227 x 157 cm Sammlung Henkel Photo: Jack Richmond © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012 Frank Stella Ostropol III, 1973 Mixed media on cardboard 234 x 268 x 43 cm Sammlung Henkel Photo: Jack Richmond © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012

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119 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Frank Stella The Grand Armada (IRS, No. 6, 1X), 1989 Painted aluminum relief 315 x 186.5 x 99 cm Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel Photo: Robert Bayer, Basel © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012 Frank Stella Lo sciocco senza paura, 1987 Mixed media and painted etched magnesium on aluminum 266.7 x 215.3 x 163.2 cm Sammlung Froehlich, Stuttgart Photo: Marek Kruszewski © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012

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121 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Okay. Dear Mr. Stella, first of all I want to thank you (Frank Stella laughs) as an artist as well My first question is: You are now doing retrospective. a (…) In 1970 you had your first After this you started your relief works with the Polish Village Series. What was the reason to start with this? Yeah, but you went in one direction. So why did you went in this relief direction? I read in your “Painting into Architecture” catalogue: “If there is anything that characterizes Did you think about volume in your work since you made the set for Merce Cunningham dance (…) in 1970, I don’t know it was... It was nice, I mean actually it had a big advantage, I think in Yes. I think it was a kind of obvious, a way of just startingagain. What was something I was interested Well it was a simple idea, but I mean the basic idea was that I would – you know -normally you No, probably not, because I think it’s there. I mean you can see it in those pictures – I went Following the press conference for the Frank Stella retrospective5 September at Kunstmuseum 2012, I had the Wolfsburg opportunity on to talk to the artist. SABINE BOEHL as a writer for the magazine Res for giving me the great opportunityexhibition to talk with and you your about artworks. your STELLA FRANK SB retrospective at MoMA, atthe age of 34. Is it in your view back a conclusion ofone working period? FS some way -yes thatI felt that- well, now I have done this -I can -it was kind of- I don’t knowwill if happen that here- but it was a kind of sense of freedom- I can do anythingworry I want now. about I don’t it anymore, have to about what I was doing. SB FS SB FS in and something that wasn’t quite the same as what I have been doing before. SB Was there any starting point, any idea about this? FS have a painting or a surface and you make a painting on that and in this caseown I felt painting that I build first my and then I paint it. So, make it sort of all mine from the very beginning. SB Frank Stella’s protean career as a painter, it is the desire to break out of thelimits canvas, imposed to go beyond by a conventional the two-dimensional rectanglethis within possibility the frame.” when Did you you think did stripe about paintings like “Plum Island”here or in “Astoria” the show in or “West 1958? Broadway” FS from all the way across, all the time as trying to use the whole thing.is And a certain so at any point logic- there you know- that one of those bands could have gone of the(Laughter). edge and keep So, going. some of it was there. SB piece “Scramble” in 1967?

y enhanced technoid offsprings of the interchanging surface elements of framing scrollwork and fillingenhanced technoid offsprings of the interchanging surface elements of framing Stella, who relates to the Stella, p.111) Frank Frank Wolfsburg, cartouches.” (Catalogue, Kunstmuseum objects totradition of the art of the Renaissance and thus the unity of architecture-sculpture-painting, in a context with Tizian,this comparison: “This early on, Stella saw himself is Markus Brüderlin.” From artist in Mondrian, and Malevich. He considers himself an Caravaggio, and Rubens; as well as Kandinsky, arts of painting, sculpturethe definition of the Renaissance where there was no separation between the and architecture. In the catalogue, Brüderlin contrasts Albrecht Dürer’s Knots with Stella’s Black Paintings, and the rocaille Black Paintings, Knots with Stella’s In the catalogue, Brüderlin contrasts Albrecht Dürer’s shaped aluminum sheets can be regarded as aluminum reliefs: “Stella’s with the shapes in Stella’s Markus Brüderlin, the director of Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, who during his time with the Fondation Beyeler who during his time with the Fondation Wolfsburg, Markus Brüderlin, the director of Kunstmuseum and Abstraction” Stella’s in Basel initiated the exhibition “Ornament 2001, which juxtaposed Frank in Stella of the ornamental tradition, wished to stage the Frank works with those of other abstract artists Ornamental graphics from “Ornament – Outlook to Modernity. retrospective coinciding with the show works with Stella’s the formal design development history of Frank Dürer to Piranesi.” Brüderlin compares interlocks with the history of ornamentation.” Stella, the history of abstraction ornamental forms: “In Frank Etymolog refers to the origins of word, or the origin of a word and its history. Etymology in the context of linguistics 1985 and 1987. Stella between Moby Dick Series, created by Frank The work “Etymology (Q-10)” is part of the the novel “Moby Dick” is titled “Etymology;” and the derivation of The first chapter in Herman Melville’s pages, referring to the relation between the words round, roll andword “whale” is presented in these first Andwhale. “Whale Sw. or This animal is named from roundness or rolling; for Dan. Hval is arched Dan. Hval. and chapped. Stella appears at the same time both floral by Frank vaulted.” The front of “Etymology (Q-10)” the outer area, followed by a honeycomb structure and reflectingSteel and aluminum, smooth surfaces in color and light are painting/sculpting? Form, of Stella’s metal in the center collide. Is this an etymology the color impression that grey is to grey and silver hues. Andhighlighted in this work that is reduced grey, at equal shares. appears when you mix all primary colors Smoke in smoke.” A synonym is “svanire” (evaporate).directly translated also means “gone up The term “sfumato” – to create an atmosphere by Leonardo da Vinci describe the painting technique used The term was used to of smoke were transferred by Frank fleeting, permanently changing rings cloudy contours. The with soft, the Stella points to sfumato, Frank da Vinci’s compositions. Referring to Leonardo Stella into solid steel a to spin off the shadow of modeling, creating painting: “What Leonardo does (...) is sculptural quality of The of magical sculptural impressionism. softness that gives way in turn to a kind sense of atmospheric Space, p. Stella, Working that paves the way for Caravaggio...” (Frank result is a pictorial ‘rounding’ of space 6, Harvard University Press, 1986). As early as 1985, Frank Stella had digital three-dimensional models made of his “Cones and Pillars”. In the made of his “Cones models had digital three-dimensional Stella As Frank early as 1985, the “Etang Towns,” Mining “French in the series finally put into sculpture, this process was early 1990s, d’Ambach” a technique or technological with regard to proved to be a pioneer Once again, Stella (1992). andarts, but also in architecture applied in the modeling is not only computer-aided Today, procedure. used digitalretrospective that Stella on the Wolfsburg his catalogue statement Halley notes in design. Peter like Iris also young fashion designers Gehry did. But not only Gehry, architect Frank tools even before the to create dresses via 3D printer. procedures – in this case van Herpen apply computer-aided

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Frank Stella West Broadway, 1958 Oil on canvas 200 × 231.5 × 7.2 cm Kunstmuseum Basel Photo: Kunstmuseum Basel, Martin P. Bühler © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012 Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Cologne Museum Ludwig, Cologne/Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation 275 x 350 x 65 cm Acrylic on aluminium Bonin Night Heron I, 1976 Frank Stella RES NOVEMBER 2012 122

125 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER So you have all in your mind and you recombine impressions and other visual effects directly? Once you described art as marks on surfaces... If we keep in mind Lascaux, Chauvey, Catalhüyük And- If there was any artist dead or alive, lived before, that you could meet, is there any person So you were more curious about the way they work? Ad Reinhardt, the artist who ended up with black paintings, while you went the other way round, You have been working with repetitive geometric structures. How far do you feel related to the I guess. I don’t know where it is. I look at things but I don’t – I mean of course I get postcards and Yeah- I don’t think about it in that way. I mean I do see after a whilethat I say: Oh I actually I It’s pretty strong. I mean I try not to worry about it. But I mean I also (…) it’s also a relieve or a No, I would be too embarrassed, I mean there are lots of works I would like to see. I would like Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I’m not quite sure if I understand it. But basically the “art as art” is – you know- is as bad as good I mean ornament exists and I like it. The question is: one, to enjoy it for yourself and two, what FS stuff like that- I have something. And of course I have books with pictures.collect what But I see.don’t I Or preserve personally what I see. SB FS know where that came from. Well that idea that I had seen before. SB up to Renaissance frescoes and contemporary art. How importantworks for you in is art the relationhistory? to former FS satisfaction. You know, it’s nice to know that in a way the notion of makingand art you is are a kind only of organism a small part of as it grows all the time. And then youinvolved get very in excited the enterprise when you are of art –right, which is going on everyday.have the So you larger have that, line but to follow. you also So it’s nice to have something comforting to belong to. SB or artist you would meet - like in science fiction- you can say: Oh I want to meet Caravaggio…? FS not so much to meet the artist. I would not mind having a little – but it seemssomething- like a voyeur I would or not mind to see them actually work a little bit. Not much-me a little if someone clip of would the actual send studio of the activity of painting- yeah. SB FS SB asked himself: “Perhaps in Islamic architectural decorationhistory there of art-as-art might be the first awareness …” in What do you think about that? FS as “what you see is what you see”. I mean it’s obvious. (Laughs) Art is art and it’s not gonna change. SB tradition of ornament? FS are the – it’s a funny word to use- “abstract” possibilities of ornament,is tricky. you know. I mean from (…) Ornament the beginning we don’t really know what ornamentsenses, really particularly means in some early on, early geometric forms. A lot of times you see a little thing: Is it all in your mind? Do you have an archive with images of art or places that touched you in some way? And did you grasp out quotations (...) like single structures, like ornaments? So it touched you becauseof the whole space? In an Interview with David Sylvester in 1965 you said: “Sometimes some of the titles seem to have As I understand your works, there is a sort of linear development from the beginning to the black So it is more of a zigzag? No. I never have taken a photograph. No. I just really worked with (...) Most of those pieces I made for some reason. (…) I made in the Yeah- the whole idea of it! Yeah think I there is. There is definitely a relation to Çatal Hüyük. (…) Çatal Hüyük is a Yeah, yeah more of a zigzag. Because you do double back lot. a You go in a way and then you say No, the real change came round 70s when started I working on the PolishVillage pieces. Ultimately you can trace a line. But the line goes more like this (Frank Stella makes gesture a of SB FS SB FS sand. I mean and then I poured metal in the sand and then painted on that. SB FS FS SB What is the reason for this connection to one of the roots of culture, as weIs know there it? any? particularly interesting place, in a lot of ways. One of which is thatfrom it appears the top that and you you enter drop down into the space. And in the space there are bothessentially- –paintings furniture and – and sculptures. So it looks though it’sthat a livable I did in separate space in which was everything once all together. So it was painting and sculpture(Laughs) and architecture all completely integrated actually in a very elegant and simple way. SB an expressive quality and that in their sound or the way they look maybein the people way they will want see to”. something Titles are often relatetd to cultural places likeparts Asia of Anatolia), Minor (nowadays or Baghdat (Madinat As-Salam) likeKhurasan Protractor Gate I, 1968Series) here as in well the show as Hacilar,(the Çatal Hüyük (early NeolithicVI settlement) B) Shrine VI (Çatal B.1 2001). Hüyük (level FS well maybe back here is good, or you could go this way. Sometimes you have to go backtoo. to go ahead, SB paintings series as pictures as well as objects to dart, relief structuresIs it that linear? that grow into the room. FS SB waves on the table) FS

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127 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Frank Stella Ifafa II, 1964 Metallic powder and acrylic on canvas 197 × 331.5 × 7.5 cm Kunstmuseum Basel Photo: Martin P. Bühler, Kunstmuseum Basel © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012 Frank Stella Tuxedo Junction, 1960 Enamel on canvas 310 × 185 × 7 cm Van Abbemuseum Collection, Eindhoven, Netherlands Photo: Peter Cox, Eindhoven © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012

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129 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER

Frank Stella Basra Gate I Magna on canvas 304,8 x 609,6 x 10,2 cm

238.8 x 274.3 x 10.2 cm Fluorescent alkyd on canvas Bafq, 1965 Frank Stella RES NOVEMBER 2012 128

131 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Frank Stella Chapel of the Holy Ghost (model), 1992 Cast stainless steel 78.7 x 86.4 x 83.8 cm Photo by Steven Sloman © 2007 There have been a lot of different ideas of that – Cosmologies. Depiction of paradise etc. Yeah. concentric circles -right?- withdot a inthe middle and someone would say that’s decorative. But maybe the guy had an idea about– you know before Kopernikus, when he was drawing. SB FS SB

So it’s the Renaissance idea of art you have? Victor Vasarely once said: “Every form is a base for color, every color is the attribute of a form.” In your shaped canvases and relief works like the Polish Village series you used wood and Some of your series refer to titles of works of literature like those of Italo Calvino, Hermann But nowadays as a free form it’s different- do you agree? Yeah. Yes I think so. They are interchangeable essentially. I think the forms were always there. (…) I consider form, form. I don’t have to ascribe the form to Well I continue to choose other than canvas, because I really don’t want to stretch canvas In the simplest way: The ambition on to dramatic. But anyway, the idea is that abstraction has Yeah. Yes.

FS SB FS painting or ascribe the form to sculpture or ascribe it to architecture.conventional I think I just Renaissance settle for the idea of fine art so it’s painting, sculpture it. do can and architecture and anybody SB So what is your next aim after getting more and more into architectonical forms? FS anymore. (Laughs) But different materials do different things.while and Like carbon plywood fibre is gets very heavy expensive after a but it’s very light and strong. SB plywood. For “Severinda” fiberglass, for the Michael Kohlhaastarpaulin. Curtain How you do you showed choose your in Berlin, material or image carrierafter of canvas? having left the traditional form FS a few more possibilities than we give it credit for maybe and that havingforms the advantage and building of using shapes and everything you can createthe of vocabulary sense that it seems that to give works the impression visually of in narrative, that you canstory. have, you That’scan tell all a visual about itself- it’s all visual. SB Melville or Heinrich Kleist- in which sense are they related to your work? FS SB FS

One of the oldest archaeological urban cities One of the oldest archaeological

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133 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Frank Stella Etymology (Q-10), 1990 (Moby Dick-Series) Aluminum and steel 241 x 223,5 x 139 cm Frank Stella, Çatal Hüyük (level VI B) Shrine VI B.1 2001 Aluminum pipe and cast aluminum 246.3cm x 322.4cm x 231cm

RES NOVEMBER 2012 132 Talk Forum Garden Auditorium Performance Screening Bookstore Open Archive Open Interpretation Walk-in Cinema Walk-in Galata Workshop saltonline.org tags saltonline.org Modern Essays Modern Who’s in town? in Who’s Collaboration Exhibitions Beyoğlu FREE research Museum Eat Support Structure Support Audio Guide Audio Hosted by Hosted Typeface Publications orn in 1974 in Darmstadt, Germany. Lives and works in Düsseldorf and Istanbul. Between , born in Maiden, Massachusetts, in 1936, lives and works in New York City. “Do the best and hope for the best”. That’s a really nice last statement. Thank you Mr. Stella. Agnes Martin’s “Advice to Young Artists” was: I can’t giveadvice. I mean- I don’t agree with Agnes either- I mean you are part of the society – Frank SteIla Frank Stella studied between 1950-1954 at Phillips Academy Andover.History After in 1958 receiving he moved to his New Bachelor York. In 1959, in he was included in the exhibition,the Museum “Sixteen of Modern Americans”, Art in New York. at He showed his Aluminium Paintings,in his first the earliest solo exhibition shaped canvases, at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York in 1960.and After galleries many he wasshown shows at in museums XXXII Venice Biennale (1966) and Dokumentaretrospective 4 (1968). Stella had a full-scale at MoMA in 1970 at the age of 34. In 2010 he received the 2009 National Medal of Arts. Sabine Boehl, b 1995 and 1999 she studied painting at Hochschule für Gestaltung, OffenbachKunstakademie and 1999 Düsseldorf. and 2004 at In 2004, 2005 and 2006 she exhibitedSchwarzwälder, at Galerie nächstand in 2008 St. Stephan,Kunstverein Rosemarie Arnsberg. In 2009 atshe Künstlerhauswas an artist in residence Schloss Balmoral,in Istanbul, Bad2010 Ems. 2011 she had her solo show2004 at Dirimart. she was writing Between for the 2001 online and art magazine Kunstmarkt.com,of RES. since 2009 she is a regular contributor The show „Frank Stella - Die Retrospektive – Werke 1958-2012“ at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany are 63 show large-format On January 2013. lasts Opening works Frank works working Stella. of 82 periods through paper an on till all 20th of hours: Tuesday a.m. 11 to 8 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday a.m. 11 to 6 p.m. Mondays closed. In the Englishand German catalogue are contributions by Holger Broeker, Markus Brüderlin, Gregor Stemmrichstatements as well as by Michael Fried, Santiago Calatrava, Sarah Morris and Serge Lemoine, among others. furtherFor information’s: http://www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de/exhibition/ SB do the best you can! Do best and hope for the best! FS So what would be your advice to young artists nowadays? SB “The life of an artist is inspired, self sufficient and independent(Fully: (unrelated „The life to society).” of an artist is inspired, self sufficientThe and independent direction of (unrelated attention of an to society. artist is towards mind in orderinspiration to be aware of inspiration. life unfolds Following free of any influence. Finally the artistis happy and recognizes contented. Nothing himself else in the will work satisfy and him. An artist’sIt leads life away is an from unconventional the example of the life.past. It struggles painfully againstIt appears its to own rebel but conditioning. in reality it is an inspired way of life.“).

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137 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Capitain Petzel, Karl-Marx-Allee, Berlin Gisela Capitain and Martin Kippenberger in “Martin Kippenberger. Petra” Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, 1987 Photo: Martin Lutz When I moved to Berlin in the early ‘70s I was fascinated by the political GC Like in a good relationship between two people it is all about communicating;of language it is you about choose. the kind PC You have been particularly faithful to your artists. Many ofthe them years. have had Your shows trust with in their you over work has remained unchanged:among a number the of most artists relevant you for represent today’s art are practice. Tell me about (reciprocal)words trust will with be enough!). artists. (Three GC I opened my own gallery in Cologne in 1986 and started to work with WernerFörg, Georg Büttner, Herold, Günther Hubert Kiecol, Martin Kippenberger,Franz Zoe Leonard, West, Christopher Albert Oehlen, Williams, Stephen and Prina, Christopher Wool. I stillas well as work with with Günther all the Förg American and the estate artists of Martin Kippenberger. PCWho were the first artists you represented? Do you still work with any of these artists? GC Martin Kippenberger was my first and most influential contacthe was with essential. contemporary We met in 1977 art. and in In 1978 fact, he asked me to be part of his ‘KippenbergersBerlin Kreuzberg Büro’ in where he wanted to present himself as an entertainer,of all kinds a manager, of projects and an in initiator the Berlin art scene of the time. His model for thisFactory. Büro During was Andy the Warhol’s years 1978 to 1980 I became more curious about contemporarymore knowledgeable. art and also Even more importantly, those years definedartists. the style I was of my relationships confronted with with Kippenberger’s method, whichcreative, was to work to produce hard, a lot, to be continuously and to party intensely; at the same time I was confrontedextremely with demanding his and extremely generous character.when After I met his being artist taught by friends, him, I felt prepared and I was also able to learn more fromon. the artists I got to know later PCHow significant was coming into contact with Martin Kippenbergerart gallery? in your decision to open an GISELA CAPITAIN consequences of the ‘68 student protests. I therefore startedchanged to study philosophy two years and later sociology to German but andmathematics so I could becomeor art a teacher. history. I didn’t study art PAOLO COLOMBO Were you a student of art or art history?

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139 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER has been an art advisor to the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art since 2008. He was one of Paolo ColomboPaolo the curators of the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennial September–18 (18 Decemberthe curator 2011). From 2001 of the to Museo 2007 Nazionale he was delle Arti del XXI Secolo in Rome.number He has of been award-winning associate films. producer of a . Born in 1952, studied at FU Berlin. 1977-80 Büro Kippenberger in Berlin. 1983 -85 Assistance at Capitain Gisela Galerie Max Hetzler, Cologne. Since 1986 Galerie All photographs: Courtesy Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne and The Estate of Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain Cologne All of the artists with whom you work have a clear vision and a distinct body of work. Yet there are a PC All work. Yet a distinct body of a clear vision and whom you work have of the artists with the outside To with you. complicity and discreet feels there is a gentle similarities, and one number of a degree of toughness – one recognizes seems sentimental any artist you represent no work by viewer, approach (for overall visionary an I also sense formal sense. mixed with an impeccable and reserve, work I feel Jorge Pardo’s lingering youth; and not about work visionary find Uwe Henneken’s example, I Heyl and Von space; in Charlene of a democratically refined architectural/social is about the utopia practice of painting). Please forgive a belief in the absoluteness of the work I detect Christopher Wool’s you represent? the work am I misreading the nature of some of this generalisation: interested in very complex, I have always been experiences with Kippenberger, GC Because of my first (even though Christopher work with a good sense of humor and formally challenging intelligent, would deny the last). Williams opened the gallery? you changed for artists in Cologne since PC How has the situation of the many museums and institutions artists to show because GC Cologne is still an important place for build an extremely well informed and critical together with local collectors, in the Rheinland that, audience. Petzel in Berlin, in regards to the gallery in with Friedrich PC What is the role of the gallery you share Cologne? with, but in the future it will develop all the artists we work GC Berlin provides a prominent platform for its own program as well. the world, at any time – that you walked anywhere in PC Can you think of an exhibition – any exhibition, were walking on cloud nine? completely free, as if you out of with a sense of elation, your spirit seven, so far three exhibitions have made me feel as though I’m walking on cloud GC Actually, as we say: London, in 2012 at Camden ArtZoe Leonard, Observation Point Center, in 2003 New York, Prototype at Dia Art Foundation, Jorge Pardo, Boymans-van Beuningen, at the Museum ‘Amerika’ Kafka’s The Happy End of Franz Martin Kippenberger, Rotterdam, in 1994 Installation view, Christopher Wool, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, 2003 Kippenbergers Büro, Berlin, 1979

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141 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Installation shots of the Blind Dates Project All images courtesy of Pratt Manhattan Gallery and Blind Dates Project I grew up in fertile soil, you are right. In the backstage of a newspaper, and a children’s theater, under theater, a children’s and of a newspaper, In the backstage DA I grew up in fertile soil, you are right. mind-numbing perfumes of a medical covered with the the editorial desks of a few cultural magazines, in the privileged in Turkey, movement of the budding Green Party clinic, in the midst of demonstrations is a writer and seducer of many of military resorts. My mother and massively subsidized sand beaches for his politics and was the last who loved Joseph Beuys artists of modernist ilk. My dad was a dentist My adopted dad comes from a lineage of which got shut down. in Turkey, President of the Green Party who ended a journalist crusader, and yet he is a relentless anti-establishment Ottoman Grand Viziers, People don’t a pervert kind of way. up being closely watched and listened to by the establishment in As a result of my upbringing, I have know this but he is a great cartoonist with a great sense of humour. very early on how achingly difficult never been one to be impressed by headlines or spectacle. I saw statements, how political creation and expression can be, how quickly optical illusions can take form via to move forward is to move forward relationships can get in creative environments, and the only way both I wanted to study art history, and just follow your gut and principles. But then the irony is when go. In that sense, they were not any So here you there is no use to it.” bother, my parents said “no, don’t know any better that you could continue different than supposedly-non-intellectual parents. They didn’t own perhaps they are still right in their existing when you follow your own desires. But then who knows, way. FÜ Ah, feels amplified contexts also sounds all very amazing. In a way your presence in trans-national you inherited your interest from first interested in art? Have in your locality as such! How were you your family? Thanks, Fatos. Funny we are meeting this way. To answer your question, tons of telegraphs answer your question, tons of telegraphs To we are meeting this way. Funny DEFNE AYAS Thanks, Fatos. the In a strange way, me every day. SKYPE calls, FB notes shower in the form of e-mails and SMS’es, be a demand for flights and my the more there seems to more I try to reduce carbon emissions, It shall pass. Plus I am also because of the recent appointment. physical presence. It is a phase, I think, In the meantime, my Ayurverdic as my appetite withdraws. questioning the “why” and the “for what” British landlord and his my hairdresser, my Wenzhounese Indian Goddess, my Brazilian housekeeper, my food- the king in the country, wife, The Consul General of our land, who is almost hypnotist French palaces nearby the office as well as my most dimsum Kong and coffee-advocate Dutch friends, Hong anchored in this non-city of Rotterdam do their best to keep me patient man – still in Shanghai, they all rate. of 160 languages and a dramatic 22% illiteracy Dear Defne, it is a pleasure to have this interview with you. You are working literally all are you. You to have this interview with FATOŞ ÜSTEK Dear Defne, it is a pleasure Performa, New York; at large for curator significant positions such as around the world, occupying co-director for Arthub Asia, de With, as director of Witte recently you have been appointed Shanghai; presence? all, how do you cope with your cross-continental Rotterdam. First of FATOŞ ÜSTEK

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143 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Installation shots of the Blind Dates Project, Pratt Manhattan Gallery All images courtesy of Pratt Manhattan Gallery and Blind Dates Project DA Artists are anything but indifferent: they are engagedideas with on a continuing their materials, basis. I work contexts, with artists and who appreciate the generosity,curiosity reciprocity, of a peer, who can and let others be their accomplice, be it in the part ofpresentation research, or production, knowledge-production. I prefer to work with artiststransformation, who are interested who believe in social in the potency of art, who are ableintelligence to exercise and in manifest more than one their way. Ideally the collaboration shouldsparks, share some and intellectual magic, and also the belief that the sum of our parts can be strongerparts. than When each working of our together, I like to cultivate a good journey ofconversations. short circuits and long-term FÜ How do you choose artists or your collaborations? Do you follow yourit is rather inner intuitive? voice? Would you say DA In a way it is the case for all producers and curators. In my case, I see my job as a collaboratorcultivating the seeds of the work of an artist andenabling all sortspublic, for transactions while respecting for the the artist’s mind, source and creationinterpretation process. As with has commissions, to be somewhat guided. the We are committed to steeringcarving interpretation spots of platforms but also for to making art a conversation generator.gap between We are consumption here to intervene and creation. in the FÜ me, To your practice seems to evolve around commissions that encourageexpressions, creation and which artistic in a way draws parallelsto your portrait of growingwondering up. In if other we could words, cast bridges I am between your experiencesthe articulation of creativity at early of one’s ages, self through let alone things with your investedcommissions labor in working all around with artists the world,along significantly for Performa, New York. DA It is not only we who are interested in many topics. You have to be able to distiland multiple histories stories at the same time all the time, to know enough about AristophanesDr. Dre and South Park and Daoism to be able but to pique also and move people’s interests. Thereresponsibility is definitely a public attached to all of this. You are lucky,because you also get to think and write a lot. FÜ I share the same state of mind with you. I think being interested insuch far too a wealth, many things while brings at the same time you keep rocking on and on as you initiateprojects. and I must accomplish add that this makes things harder in a way that you cannotsingular define channel yourself of production. in a In other words, being interesteda challenge in far too many for people subjects to relate makes to your it practice, let alone define your territory of signification. DAI think desires are related to what you think will allow you to simplyintellectual, expand - be it on financial, artistic, or physical grounds.so because I took a long I had to route figure to find out this what I exactly fire in me, wanted more to take form. I just had tooI still many interests, do. It took me a few and back-steps and some adventurous leaps of faith to get forward. FÜ I think following your own desires requires such strength.yourself On the if you one do hand not follow you cannotthem, be while on the other, there is alwaysparental the challenge expectations. of not meeting I wonder if most parental expectationsenvironments are set to employ rather or most desires protective involve artistic endeavours.

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145 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Sislej Xhafa Sislej Xhafa, Yellow Associates in Motion,2005. Produced by Performa in association with Yvon Lambert New York for Performa 05. Photo by Paula Court. Xu Zhen Long March Project - Xu Zhen, ln Just a Blink of an Eye,2007. Photo by Paula Court. Courtesy of Performa, Long March Project, and James Cohan Gallery.

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147 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Ozkaya 2 Serkan Ozkaya, Bring Me the Head Of...,2007. Photo copyright Paula Court. Courtesy of Performa. I am all for a perpetuation of different collisions, encounters, introductions, and driftings. That’s introductions, and driftings. That’s DA I am all for a perpetuation of different collisions, encounters, what Arthub Asia question is eternally about how we can It was a fragile exercise. The was all about. why I have mostly focused on live work while align with the life force of artists and art-making, that’s as a its building, I will embrace it at Performa. Now that I am responsible for a major institution and and half church for connections place that will be half something and half something else, for instance oscillations and activations across transactions, and half think-tank for thought-provoking knots, humanities. Arthumanities. Here, the exhibition will still can be a facilitating force through the crisis of with explicitly imbedded many centers and gravity points simultaneously, holding remain as a center, as the think I can dwell on structures and process too much either, collaborations. But then, I don’t patience is also getting more limited. audience’s Hmm, you add the unknown for both parties into the equation. Let us think about the notion into the equation. FÜ Hmm, you add the unknown for both parties that your practice amplifies the significance of I have a feeling of encounter in the realm of art. Arthubproduction of Performa and encountering art –be it in the content Asia as well as in your new curatorial practice has not really been about In other words, your de With. position as director at Witte but rather as an event-based practice in dedicated white cubes, generating static displays of artworks engagements. that manifests itself as a series of processual Perhaps an initiation? To a path within you, albeit untapped by you before, which is enabled via the a path within you, albeit untapped by you before, which is enabled via the DA Perhaps an initiation? To for the same. agency of another who, on their path, asked What is an encounter? What do you expect an encounter to contain? FÜ What is an encounter? What do you expect I love the artist’s agency to reach in and out, through and within. Artists to reach in and out, agency take us into the layers, DA I love the artist’s into the most fraudulent histories or forgotten, sometimes cracks and crevices of the unknown, omitted, sometimes even to the magical sometimes into the speculative and wildly imaginative, of a country, artworks, or admirable artists, years to find fully satisfying reality of the stars. It takes us sometimes what makes us going, I guess. we eternally struck? That’s but then once we do, aren’t FÜ It is quite a fine line, to sustain the progression of a prolific collaborationnot fall into while the lapses at the same of ego-drives. time In this regard, what is the natureart? Do of you your fall relationship in love with with art? DANot really elaborate, is it? And I agree with you. Trust is key. Trust isthat the birthplace you wantto flow. of anything Being able to make sharp decisions and draw thecreation force of life and presentation towards is also essential. Artists’ desireschallenged canbe enhanced, - that’s expanded, where collaboration and comes about. When takingthe ideas on a pilgrimage of the artist to and gothrough their collaborators, this cannot be encapsulatedpersonal input within certainly a neutral kicks setting, in. You have to be ableto act selfishlytime and to be able collectively to do this. at the same FÜ This is such an elaborate position, to approach collaboration as symmetryoutcome is more of than a peer while the quantitative the togetherness of both parties.friction I also agree is a necessity. that creative There is an additional dimension to that ofyou collaboration, commission an especially artist for new a when piece. There, you involve the notiontake of the trust risk. while accepting to

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149 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Asli Cavusoglu Asli Cavusoglu, Words Dash Against The Façade,2011. Photo by Paula Court. This sounds very exciting. Could you tell us a bit more on these two projects? Additionally, what do two projects? Additionally, FÜ This sounds very exciting. Could you tell us a bit more on these more amplified during your years? you envision for your programming? What do you think will be DA For me the redefinition of European core values in the next two decadesthrough is a major the focus, defence be it lines of Islam or China. Defences make us whohave we are to be carefully at the end of the day threaded, and and I think agency remains withinshuffled, those in-betweeners, psychologically challenged. culturally I also agree withthis, you that so I am artists putting them have back a big role in the to play center in of the map. I asked artist Hemana pipeline Chong between to moderate Hong Kong and Witte de With, and invited AA Bronsonnext to curate year a show in 2013. with us FÜ What kind of exhibitions do we need right now? What voices do we need to hear? DA I am a fan of the idea of “museum without walls” for sure. With Performa,cross-pollinating we were zealously museums that were usually in competition withgood”. Now each as you other know, for museums the “higher are starting their own performancesecularization departments. experienced And the deep in Europe for sure allowed theby function an atmospheric of the church museum, to be replaced which is in perpetual crisis as an entity,by the and rescuing is being only arms salvaged of local, national, and international tourismoutreach agencies via broadcast as well as machinery educational at the moment. Gerardo Mosquera,Museum circa adjunct 2003, curator thought of the a museum New should be a hub for cultural partnershipsnew art and ideas channelling from all around the world, which sounds no-brainerthe time, Museum after as eight a Hub was years. a ground-breaking But at idea, and I worked onat it its in inception, my junior capacity with the Curator of Education at the time. Its embrace was quitethe beginning. microscopic My at experience from within was that even a non-collectingpurely into blockbusters, museum leadership and justified was its existence only by numberscoverage of attendance it received. and Now press that I am within four walls at a Kunsthalle,other I believe forms we of need criteria to form for validation for places as such. Its catalyticwhich is function one of my main focuses in the humanities, right now via Erasmus and Leiden University,impact in and the its long-term potential cannot be measured by numbers only. FÜ Your approach to museums from the position of modern temple brings forththe role the of challenge the curator, let of alone the artist. Can museums be differentcurators from temples? play a role Can in this? artists or DAThat’s why live work is so critical and essential. You cannot zip the liveto engage experience. with itand with You have the ideas put forth. You cannot escape it like youto this would day, solid a video. works But are capable of gluing you in, no doubt, despite Windows,Chrome. despite But then Google I am now getting even more interested in “creation”production, itself, pre-performance, pre-live momentum, pre- and how ideas are being conjured up and distilled. FÜ The patience of the audience plays quitesignificant a role, I reckon.the fast-paced Especially indigestive if we consider encounters that are encouraged by artquantity,fairs and that large-scale keep growing museum in shows that simplify the formulationthe presence of of subject the Internet matter. Moreover, and increasing usage of search enginesanother in our habitual daily life parameter, introduces that is: Scanning through rather than delving in.

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151 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Qiu 2 Long March Project - Qiu Zhijie, The Thunderstorm is Slowly Approaching,2007. Photo by Elizabeth Proitsis. Courtesy of Performa and Long March Project. Under the title Blind Dates: New Encounters from the Edges of a Former Empire, thirteen new Empire, a Former from the Edges of DA Under the title Blind Dates: New Encounters Gallery in November 2010. The at Pratt Manhattan collaborative artistic projects were launched began five years prior to its opening, public programs which exhibition, together with a series of related in the North Americanprovided a rare platform, particularly both artists and non-artists, for context, legacy and rupture of the Ottoman tackle what remains of the who were curatorially “match-made” to the and Neery Melkonian in 2006, upon Empire (1299-1923). The Blind Dates Project was conceived by me the exploring forms of dialogue on invitation of a committee formed by people who were investing in The project is know what. but didn’t axis and who wanted to do something with art, Turkish-Armenian abrupt rupture and its violent reformulation into nation states built on the premise that the empire’s in Egypt, One could also argue that the current struggles have their lingering effects on life to this day. as well as the modern formation of the Armenian and Greek Diasporas are Libya, Iraq, and Palestine Addlargely linked to this particular historical moment in question. to that a corresponding amnesia politics today. events in Turkish and perversion of historiography or continued denial of catastrophic politicians, even literary traditions Until now interested audiences have mostly relied on academics, been though Ottoman Studies have to learn about this underexplored yet highly nuanced topic. Even institutions for decades, only recently have we begun to witness non- in existence in leading Western FÜ In a former article by the Armenian Mirror Spectator, you havepurposefully elaborated on history constructed as a reality: “History is alwaysthere’s written often with a discrepancy a purpose, with between an agenda, the and history of the establishmentbeen left out because and other they versions didn’t fit in that a given have regime’s agenda. Maybefor alternative this platform points can allow to be made, either in order to de-construct ana non-existing existing myth, narrative.” or to build up This is quite a strong positioning ofis relating articulated. to reality Could as it is and you as briefly tell us about the Blind Dates project,published? for which this article was DAI studied history, but I also grew up seeped in it. I am smitten by all of its dysfunctions.I attract it to my path like And a magnet. Lippmann, Rosenthal & Company -thestory Jewish I worked looting on when bank at de Appel Curatorial Program- for instance fellintervention. onto my lap like a divine I met the former owner of the building, a Woody Allenesquewhile I was marvelling character, by at chance the building on a street corner. I didn’tnext know to that me would his little change appearance my life that year as well as my perception of Dutchan history eye, and take in a blink me on a journey of from the renowned late writer Harryrecords Mulisch at the National to the Auschwitz Library in the Hague, from conversationsDocumentation and research Center at the (NIOD) War and Sotheby’s in Amsterdam to the resistancemanaging partners. of the ABN Ambro’s All this eventually made me invitehistorian, artist Michael to tackle Blum, all who was these trained findings, as a and in him I have found a true collaborator. FÜ What is your relationship with history? What do you seek when you seek? DA I’d like to, but it’s too soon. Slow-cooking is a major focus, I can tell you that.case Especially of Alexandre in the Singh’s The Humans, which is evolving overtissues a year, allowing of the key topics us to get that into drive the the artist’s work and mind suchpictorial as cosmogony, cosmology, satire from Daumier to the idea of mountain in art and literature.combined with This a dynamic slow-cooking program isthat workswith select artistworld propositions to expose and fromrefine all around the European the lines of what iscausing defensiveness in the continent…

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153 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Performa lnstitute, Ragnar Kjartansoon,2011. Photo by Elizabeth Proitsis How do you relate to your new condition of working within the physical walls of a space - running DA It is a special place, this Witte de With. Admittedly, it is one of the best white cubesI get requests in the world. from China for its floor-plans and blueprints. Yet evenoutside my best of intentions it at times, have to be to be negotiated with its walls, with its institutionalexhibition-making weight. The art of remains at its core for sure. All of a sudden itme, is a new with dimension the added Matthew of politics effect for of course. FÜ an institution rather than commissioning experimental live art? DA For sure. Everything I have worked on was part of this collaborativethat the market ilk, but always it is my experience finds its way in. One way oranother. This has beenremain so historically so. What I am finding and will now is that there is an increase in marketand collectors agents such who as dealers are far more adventurous that artists and curatorsindeed. of my ilk. Fascinating times FÜ In this regard, would you support the current tendency of turningexhibitions away from as way a object-based of initiating collaborative processual structuresway of avoiding and market at the same domination? time as a Depending on what the project is, you can find yourself in the midst ofof a production lawyers, with venture a number capitalists or strip-teasers in New York, astrophysicistsscholars in Rotterdam, and Old Testament punk-bands, Cultural Revolutionin Chinese experts, opera, and experimental straight singers drummers in Norway singing songs of male-to-malealso work with art love. historian I was lucky to RoseLee Goldberg, whose commitmentpioneering to performance for all. was indeed DAPerformance as a medium is essentially about “live”ness, politics,remember everything becoming interested human. in performance I in high school listeningtapes sold in Taksim to bootleg Square. Laurie I went Anderson to the Austrian high school in the heartbrothel. of Galata, It was an next all-girls to a school, filled with nuns, and somehowI got it all into worked the visual out for me. art And scene then -into contemporary art- during my freshmanPhiladelphia. year in college I had to write in a paper about the Robert Mapplethorpe/vs. Madonna. NEA situation, I became obsessed Cindy Sherman with performance. FÜ What has drawn you to performance? Is it its potential of tacklingtemporality, issues of duration, marked space-time experience? Or what? DADeep politics as such. Deep knowledge as found rarely in people. Whatawareness moves me is a desire and expansion, for along with theprospect of creation, and co-creation, as within my job. FÜ What else influences you or moves you? formalist or critical scholarship on related subjects. We trusted the task of “unlearning and relearning” of “unlearning and trusted the task We on related subjects. or critical scholarship formalist and Ahmet artists including and emerging roster of established to an international Jalal Toufic, Ogut, of knowledge of other fields the integration and encouraged and practitioners, Nina Katchadourian, and dance. anthropology, philosophy, i.e., architecture, within their inquiries, production

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155 RES RES NOVEMBER 2012 2012 NOVEMBER Qiu Zhijie, Map of Utopia, 2012. Courtesy the artist. Qiu Zhijie, Blueprints. Installation view. Photography Bob Goedewaagen

RES NOVEMBER 2012 154 Who is Matthew? Independent curator and art critic, from Istanbul, currently based in London, UK. She is a member in London, UK. She is a member Fatoş Üstek Independent curator and art critic, from Istanbul, currently based Sweden; regular contributor to art magazines of AICA TR; guest tutor at Vision Forum, Linkopings Universitet, under with Per Huttner and Infra with Anna Gritz and publications. Ustek is a member of OuUnPo, leads La Duree Art and Encounters Situations of Contemporary the framework of Vision Forum. She is the editor of Unexpected (2012). Architecture since 2000 (2011) and author of Book of Confusions (b. 1976) is the Director and Curator of Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam of Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam Defne Ayas (b. 1976) is the Director and Curator an art history Ayas worked as a director of programs of Arthub Asia and as as of January 2012. Before that, since in Shanghai. Ayas has also been a curator/programmer of PERFORMA instructor at New York University the biennial’s performance based in New York City, where she has managed 2004, the biennial of visual art City and (co-) a consortium of eight+ cultural institutions across New York collaborative partnerships with and curators, programs with an international roster of artists, architects, organized acclaimed projects and large at Performa. writers. She remains a curator-at- ITP degree from Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam and received her Masters Defne Ayas completed De Appel of at University York University, and her MA in Foreign Affairs and Studio Art – Tisch School of the Arts at New Virginia. (with Benjamin Cook, LUX), and 2012 Shanghai In September 2012, Ayas is curating the 11th Baltic Triennale Biennale’s Istanbul city pavilion. * Question asked by Defne Ayas during our e-mail and facebook ping pong. Defne Ayas during our e-mail and facebook * Question asked by FÜ be given, and one that hath shall unto every For Gospel of Matthew: to a line in the biblical DA This refers hath. even that which he not shall be taken from him that hath abundance: but he shall have

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