ART WORLD / WORLD ART NO:6 NOVEMBER 2010

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION previous issuesbyvisitingourwebsite You cansubscribeforthehardcopyofRESoraccesspdfversion Ulrich Obrist Ulrich Continuing withouraimtoincludeartisticstatementsinRES,f Art BaselDirector Sharpasshe prepares forher seventh Frieze Art Fair,whileJanineSchmutz speakswithformer Amanda on hispathfromsoccertoTateBritainandbeyond.Anotherinspir Tobias Rehberger, made during his recent stay in Istanbul in stay recent his during made Rehberger, Tobias Hovsepian Hamlet several illuminatingandengaginginterviews.Openingthisissue isaveryspecialinterviewwith Concluding itsthirdyear,RESisproudtoannounceagreatlist art galleryDirimartfromIstanbul;REShasbeentravelingf integrating criticalpiecesbygallerists,artists,curatorsandwr 2007. RESsetoutwiththeobjectiveofcastingaglanceatworld RES ArtWorld/isproudtopresentitssixthissuesince public artcommissionforthecityofMardin.RESisalsoproudto crafted aspeciallycomposedpiecethatbringstogetherresearch andideasthathavefedhisMyCity Ackermann RES art eventssothatwecanmeetinperson! We hopeyouenjoythissixthconfigurationofRESandplease look outforusatupcomingartfairsand feedback. byPelinDerviş,conductedduringhisrecentvisitto Istanbul,theconversationfollowshim introducesforthefirsttimeinEnglishhisdiscussion with 11thIstanbulBiennalartist Sam Keller Sam . LookingatthemorecommercialsideofartworldBurcuYükselcatchesupwith . www.resartworld.com . . Wealsolookforwardtoreceivingyour airs andarteventsaroundtheglobe. ofcontributionsandinparticular art fromabroadperspectiveby or thisissue iters. Publishedbythecontemporary unveil acommissionedcollageworkby beginning itsjourneyinSeptember ing contributiontoRESfrom of thecurrentissueaswell Clemens von Wedemeyer von Clemens Hans Hans Franz Franz

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3 RES NOVEMBER 2010 NOVEMBER Franz Ackermann during installation time at Städtische Galerie Altötting 2009 What is , I would like to O⁄UZ ERD‹N ” Now, knowing your work, thinking about your mental maps FA Yeah. PD Sank Veit? This is in Bavaria? FA Yes, Sank Veit. PD You were born in Neumarkt? FA Ok… PD Thank you. So let’s go further back. INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH, TRANSCRIBED BY INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH, PELİN DERVİŞ I was influenced by what Robert Schäfer - the editor inin chief his article of Topos magazine “Landscape” - wrote that appears in a publication entitled Crucial Words. He wrote: “ FRANZ ACKERMANN Landscape, of course, is a term in painting. Withillusion, painting I mean a two an dimensional aspect of thing which went through centuriesexample like Hans a form Memling, of emancipation. one of the earliest For painters, when the subjectbecame of landscape focus. Making in his work a big jump to Rembrandt where landscape becameof his very career. important Then, up at to the Piet end Mondrian’s “Broadway Boogie Woogie” whichshows is a plastered the New York City piece landscape that in a very modern way, as a pattern… So, hoppingcenturies, throughlandscape the is not homogeneous,a closed, iconographic clearthing thatanymore. somethingFor me, it was is missing:very interruptions, formsof disorientations,tortures to landscape, scratches, whether accidents, they are even natural, artificialquite nicely or urban. explains And I think, for me is that what we Mr. all Schäfer face the situation where we likeconstellation. to live in the urban We have to live in urban constellations but on the other sideand we more are individuals. trying to be more So a city, an urban living as a form of ideal communitythat everyone is facing the conflict becomes very egoistic or individual. So on theseproblems. two poles, For we me face it is rethinking our upcoming these things on a two dimensionalthem back level on a lucid and level why I want is to that bring these conflicts are visible first.effects They are but they not only are sociological also visible and that’s why I started and still continue making art. landscape really? This question simple will not permit answer any Instead, answer. a simple says more about person the replying than about the subject. Theessence of landscape can only be discovered, created and formed throughbrainwork. difficult is It communicate to about landscape without first defining the concept… raise the same question and ask: What is landscape?

RES NOVEMBER 2010 AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANZ ACKERMANN ACKERMANN FRANZ WITH AN INTERVIEW

CITIES, JOURNEYS AND MENTAL MAPS; MAPS; MENTAL AND JOURNEYS CITIES, 2

5 RES NOVEMBER 2010 NOVEMBER . Later on I’ve heard that this term is FA I started studying in Munich and just by chance it was very classicallyand paintings. oriented: I come from lots the of drawings printing side. Today, you can still see that mygraphic paintings aspects. have strong I never denied that because I already knew that I didn’tform of want emotion to bring or any an kind authentic of gesture onto the surface of a painting. So forwas me, much a sport more with convenient a ball or convincing than doing gestical paintings.learned But I learned a lot about it in it Munich. and I Studying in Hamburg (Hochschulethese für conceptual Bildende Kunst) aspects brought into my artwork. Until today I feel both aspectsfinished are very in Hamburg, important. there When was a chance I to apply for a small scholarshipfunny because in Hong Kong. I applied It was with quite a reason to go to a new city where I didn’t understandSo in these the days public I made lot a signs! of work based on emblematic questions, the significantSaussure, and questions going to the new about structuralist side from RolandWith Barthes a small scholarship and all these analytic of 500 Euros per things. month in Hong Kong, unbelievable.and10 days I hopped later I was over already there in front of a Burger King store selling tickets!a big new city This and it was was so refreshing, the start in I felt so free. I made short trips to Newsuddenly York, to London… the cultural And clash in Asia took place. I started rethinkingthe city, fun, about nature, my work in tourist terms of attractions, simply friends, how to survive,stay at night. A lot how of to English find the people party, were a place down to there in those days andlearned I not with a lot a low by budget surviving but with no budget! After almost half a year of lookingHong Kong through and then neon the signs lights, in collecting newspapers, photographs,question postcards, that even I came the back photographing to the the city is not enough. PD It’s not enough? FA It’s not enough. I felt a form of emptiness. A desire to go on more profoundlyempty and I grabbed notebook, an some papers from a cheap Chinese store and started redrawingof where I liked certain to be in Hong Kong, aspects where I hated to be… the forbidden city was stillexample out there. there For was a huge architecture that impressed me. So I redesignedsmall and cabin. redrew We were that young 14 in my people in our dormitory for the firstanything 7 months. I couldn’t else but even afford the teachers with a job were there so it was reallyfirst fun. notes. And From these the beginning were my I called them mental maps something already in sociology. I didn’t mind. Until today, it is a 13 to 19 cm piecefollows of paper which me as the main backline in my work. Even here today in Istanbul,me, this is like I have breathing these sheets forwith me. And then from that point I came back overland,year of traveling, another going half by boat a to Shanghai, traveling all the way withstepping the Trans out Sibirian one month in Ulaanbaatar, express, then in Minsk I got kicked outother from a train train and anymore. there was no PD Why? FA For my whole trip back from Beijing to Berlin I only needed 95 US dollars. CanThat’s you believe what I learned that? from other travelers: you should only travelborders in the country and cross the side country between on bridges. the That’s what made it so cheaptrain but in Minsk, station for I was two on the and a half days. Emptiness and only Russian peopleup, two and guys suddenly with Kalashnikovs I got woken – I know it sounds really adventurouspulled me up and - they said “Now!” offered and me suddenly tea and a huge train came and it was an incrediblein Australia long but one it was like completely empty. They pushed me into this train and they gave me… . What were the reasons that initiated PD In an article I remember reading that for you travel is a categoricalyour necessity. work, this Thinking seems obvious. about I am interested to hear about it, especiallywhere you starting produced your from first Hong major Kong series of mental maps FA Yes, for instance, I remember that I slept at bus a stop in Copenhagen thethe day Louisiana before I went to Museum. I walked over there. It took half a day and I waslandscape deeply impressed and the first with Giacometti the sculptures I saw. I thought simplysituation. “That’s All it!” What these a wonderful modern art sculptures… Marx Ernstjust sculptures, freedom from all where this I came freedom... from. And For me I started it was recognizingor 15. cities It sounds more really or less at the strange age of 14 but for a lot of young people cities are alreadyFor us, boring it was going and to Munich! annoying. Watching a soccer game was still a big event. Goingfull to the day, or city staying for a overnight was a big thing even when I was already 17. PD Do you remember any museum, exhibition or a moment that influenced you at that time? such a focus? Why Hong Kong for instance as a starting point? FA We were five and itwas very a traditional situation. The main focusmyself of my brothers, was playing my soccer dad and every day. I don’t know why I started lookingturned at artworks or 14 15, I started but when reading I books and looking at plates, of SalvadorI went Dali deeply and Rembrandt. into etchings of Rembrandt and Hercules Segers forkind example. of a rhythm So there besides wasthis school, playing soccer, and at the end of the day, beingdeveloping in thecellar etchings and of my own. My dad was astonished, got a littleend bit angry of school when and I got shocked the allowance at the to study art at the high school in MunichBildenden (Akademie Künste). der And he looked at me and said “What? What did youAnd do? What I said that’s are you what doing?” I’ve been doing for five years in the cellar. Anddown for the to first the cellar time and he ran he looked at thesmall studio, it looked like a smallthe printing etchings cabin. and all the So, all stuff I’d developed my own, this was the startingI do wall paintings point. Still with my today, brother, when a lot of the terms come from soccer. We say “Ohartwork! what a weak We are still 2-0 back but it’s not even halftime” andI started stuff like traveling that (laughs) to all … From these Munich museums. Hitchhiking was theto the main Louisiana transportation. Museum in I went Copenhagen, up I went to The National Galleryhitchhiking in London - and - always back when by school continued. PD Ah, so you were 5? FA Regarding my biography, I always say with a laugh, that I can’t compete within a huge terms biography of growing up in a township or any kind of these pressures...small It was village. a nice childhood One hourin east a of Munich, I grew upwith 2 sisters and 2 brothers, big a family. PD (Laughs) Would you please talk a little bit about that? The reason why I askunderstand is to try to the seeds of your art, whether itarises from these years or not… FA Yes! PD Would you please tell us about the environment thatyou lived, aboutDo you soccer, have about brothers your family? and sisters?

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7 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Altermodern Tate Triennial 2009 Tate Britain, London

Propeller Installation view Kunstmuseum Bonn 2009

2009 at Kunstmuseum Bonn From the exhibition RES NOVEMBER 2010 6 9 NOVEMBER 2010

knowing what it would look like. For example my first trip to Brazil, we didn’t know what kind of paint RES was around. We only had car paint from an old garage and still today it looks quite interesting. Going public doesn’t mean that I know exactly what I’m bringing with me. Intervening immediately wherever I am. And this was a step by step process because I didn’t have any experience at being quick or acting professionally… One of the first important shows was with Kasper König at the Portikus in Frankfurt.

PD When was that?

FA 1997… From playing intense soccer to being at a point that Kasper König is interested in showing my watercolors was only 6 to 8 years. It was a very proud moment for me but it was just… I still didn’t know why these watercolors could be of value. There was a very important gap between finishing studying and traveling. Today it seems to me that a main thing for students is to finish studying and already knowing a gallery partner. For myself, traveling after studying, the sketchbooks, the photos, the first mental maps all this stuff came up step by step from the beginning.

Portikus PD From the cellar! Installation view Frankfurt am Main 1997 FA Yes, the main important thing for me to communicate today is a fax machine and everyone in America remarks “a fax machine!” (laughs) And on that dialog, I have the works on paper which bring me through PD Food? the cities, the canvas which is stiff in the studio and the wall; architecture related interventions which bring the unknown to a fact are permanently shifting in value, right? Last year wall paintings became FA Not food but bed sheets. And then there was quietness and we were on the Frankfurt/Oder border in 100% of my daily work. For example “Wait” in London, then “No Roof But The Sky” and in between, the two days and they kicked me out. I didn’t know what was happening then but I knew I was at the German huge show in the Kunstmuseum Bonn, which was around ten times bigger than the “Wait” installation… border. I stepped out, the police asked for my passport and then I learned this was the train that brought the Soviet army from Berlin back to Russia. The withdrawal of the troops was agreed and I was part of PD Let’s go back to Kasper König. How did it happen? world history (laughs). I was the only one in that direction… FA I was in Berlin. One day in the morning he stood in front of my door and said “Hello, I am Kasper And then, just by chance I met Tim Neuger in a podium discussion, I made some comments and he König” and I was just coming back from partying. I had 10 sheets of paper on the table. He is one looked at me and said “What are you doing?” and I said “I just came from the other direction!” He was in of the most fascinating curators I’ve ever met. This kind of curiosity, this kind of professional LA and learning the gallery job at Luhring Augustin Hetzler and he said “What do you do?” I said “I am interest. I just would love to see that more of the young curators would follow his track. The an artist” and he said “I plan a gallery”, I said “Great!” So we started together in 1992 with the first show pictorial, the elusive questions about our world… More paintings, more watercolors in the after Jorge Pardo did the design of the gallery. He introduced me to some friends: Elizabeth Peyton, Keith worldwide biennials would be nice. Edmier, Rirkrit Tiravanija. PD But your work does not merely consist of painting? PD And you kept your focus on that and continued traveling, visited other cities and other countries and so on. What happened afterwards? FA Exactly, because I know the weight of painting and its failures. I know what kind of belief I can set up and demolish in a painting. So taking a closer look at how I install a painting in a space, it FA This stay in Hong Kong for such a long time with a low budget made me mentally independent and becomes logical that other parts like television, video clips, the material installation structures today I’m not focusing too much on certain standards or values. I don’t need these and they actually are necessarily involved where I think the painting structure of this thing is weaker. So think make me crazy. This is a very subjective thing. The interest in my work started with Tim Neuger and about the early conceptual pieces of Joseph Kosuth for example, a painted chair, the definition Burkhard Riemschneider who joined him to open the Galerie Neugerriemschneider. So now, someone was of a chair and the “real” chair, so, text, image, physical object. I am not painting all these facts asking me about work every single day. Suddenly there is a third aspect. This is something that later on of the whole work like I did in my installation at the Tate Britain. Classical sculptors, friends as a teacher I always repeat: there is time to create your own life beside your artwork. You travel on your and colleagues of mine, they would jump out of the window after witnessing how I act three own, privately or with friends, go to a party or to a soccer game without thinking about a mental map. dimensionally.

RES But you’re also doing your research while traveling with your small watercolor tools… This third aspect - showing the result somewhere - was a very important experience. I created one major work without PD You are using different tools to express your conceptual ideas. NOVEMBER 2010 8

11 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Living-Dying Kunstmuseum Bonn 2010 my private retrospective Installation view Kunstmuseum Bonn 2009 Wait White Cube London 2010

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Volcano Oil on canvas 280 x 435 cm 2010

2008 Hannover at Kestner Gesellschaft From the exhibition RES NOVEMBER 2010 12 15

FA And there is an open thing far away from having a reference, having the question of identity. It’s just movement and its reverse. This was the first experience to change the attitude and it’s not by NOVEMBER 2010 like being on stage - the theatrical aspects that you can use today and the next day use something else chance. It is important for me. I took a look at the corridor pieces of Bruce Nauman, to Robert Morris’ RES for a new thought. I always like this idea: not to be identified by a wall painting. There is a short video cages, minimal art. I studied a few months with Dan Graham in Hamburg. All these things were clip in the installation at Tate Britain. A huge hub of world flags and besides a small clip of a Western, very important for me to learn and to analyze how I can focus on my own interest and necessity of where James Coburn asks Bob Dylan as an actor, “Who are you?” and Bob Dylan answers as a young work. So that’s why these “Evasion” pieces stayed separate beside the “Mental Map” pieces because cowboy “That a good question!” It’s a very interesting constellation, in the context of the movie he is a I didn’t want to bring them together for the first years. Step by step, it became the issue of ‘size’ young boy who is very good at throwing knives. This was a symptomatic title for the whole installation because I wanted them to be physical in the painting. These big paintings with one color field, that identity, individuality, being famous or being anonymous… this classical goddess of modernity, right? This end of modernity in my view was planned for the corridor. So it was intended that people are more in the canvas, in the color field to enjoy the piece PD I am curious to hear a bit about your generation, in terms of influences and interactions. Other rather than being far away. I’ve already seen the color fields in paintings 50 years ago. The color artists, literature, music, academia etc… fields are going over a silhouette or a figure. Form and color are not linked together anymore but they have complete freedom. Plus, physical movement. So, these things brought me to this moment FA The fall of the Berlin wall cannot be repeated in terms of teaching it, the students in Berlin have when size is a very important physical note. Size, in terms of immaterial surface. Also the show at to wait for another event to feel it! (laughs) What happened in Berlin was an accumulation of huge the Kunstmuseum Bonn, a very large space with huge wall paintings in relation to oil on canvas energy to all directions. We know that compared to other cities working and living in Berlin is paintings are in the same room. I call this attitude of making architecture “my small chapel”. It cheap, you can have a studio. But there was no structure at the beginning. Suddenly, with Galerie looks like a small Renaissance chapel… Architecture becomes a complete illusion and watercolors Neugerriemschneider, Klosterfelde and Galerie Neu, there were 3, 4 galleries that started showing fitted there as one and only form of cosmos. Coming back to the beginning topic of landscape, young art in relation to the established former western galleries. And we talk about 4 to 6 galleries after almost 20 years of doing watercolors, I now have the tools to melt everything together. I am and not over 400 like it is nowadays… Once, we met in the cellar a strange artist called Manfred in Istanbul today with one pen but I feel free. I can observe the city, I can analyze, I can decide to Pernice. He was making small models there, came one floor up and showed them at Galerie Neu. All install something here without using anything I ever did before or I can go up into my hotel room these artists were around. Music, literature and it was a very intense time which more and more and make a small mental map. So I am “emancipated” by my own tools. I like this idea a lot and I people joined very rapidly. Berlin is a party city now and a fun city for all generations. It’s a tourist learned it a little bit, a fuse of what Graham described to me about how to watch, how to analyze and city. I got gentrified 3 times from the studio which is a very normal thing. So now we have this kind how to focus on certain aspects. of almost hedonistic attitude in relation to art. A lot of galleries, museums, you just can’t do them all. Other cities in Germany underestimated the soak to Berlin, they are not well represented in the media as they should be. I still think Munich is a big scene, Cologne, Düsseldorf is a very important scene. And we will see what happens to Berlin. Maybe we all get tired there and we won’t see the quality anymore…

PD (Laughs) Maybe it is time for the fourth…

FA (Laughs) Fourth gentrification. I have a countryside storage studio, one hour south of Berlin. But the fourth permanent gentrification is staying in other cities for a month, instead of three days. It is only half a year that I am in Berlin, mostly for the big canvases and in the other half of the year I am out installing and making watercolors.

PD You have been presenting your works in solo and group exhibitions since 1991. I don’t know the exact number but the list is long! What’s the importance at exhibiting your work to the public?

FA The audience of course, the visitor, the people who stay in front of a canvas and look at the painting, this classical thing. I followed and watched openings of my shows. I thought that this attitude related to artwork is still one of the most profound forms of looking at something. It’s a 1000 year contemplation. If you think about mental maps, you have to walk from one map to the other. Put your nose very close to the things. What happens if I confront them with a huge canvas RES where they have to stand in front of them? That’s why in the beginning I called them “Evasions.” NOVEMBER 2010 They have to travel with their eyes. Experiencing the physical movement becomes a visual The Rock Installation view Mixed media, works on paper Kunstmuseum Bonn 14 2009

17 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER PD I am also curious about the future; what is the point that you are movinghave in towards? mind? What do you FA What I already mentioned is the confrontation in my daily work: I havematerial a big part and of analog through daily life and communication, a big part ofalready digital material. in the mental maps or in the paintings So, what I started I once worked on are becoming a collagedifferent of certain neighborhoods. These days I am convinced that if I confrontwith a mental that map an experience I started in Rio in de Istanbul Janiero, it is no longer a homogenous landscape,you’ll which follow. It is a topographic thing, which reminds me in Istanbulare aspects the landscape that are in Rio. different There of course but there are things thattogether are very as a conflict similar. with I bring the them use of language. We are talking nowletters but this conflict and sentences, is based on in one media. There I insist on the quality.relation I sometimesto blacka and bring white a drawingshop which- inis very documentary and- bring paintedthat together facade of a building.with the oil So, something very impossible is functioninga form of freedom. in my eyes Of course, and this youare is pushed forward to questionsform. about media, These traditional composition,color, terms are all becoming questionnairesI am not melting in terms it down I think. of their own So, neighborhood. I got the feeling that it worked verypainting well. It’s not in terms an abstract of an abstract question of form and color. It is a referencesometimes to our life strongly but it is coded and sometimes strongly clear. It looks likesometimes the map from it Los looks Angeles like a map but from an unknown planet. So on that point,about I’m getting really up and enthusiastic saying to myself “Come on, go ahead! This is an interestingwork for the upcoming aspect months!” in your I have a lot of aspects to clear like: The question between the color andphotograph, the black and what white it means to our photographers. What it means to our oilit means and canvas to a colorful surface. wall What painting in relation to the black and white photographs.I can work on them And while of course sitting at the Bosphorus, having a cup of Turkishthinking coffee (laughs)… in images. It is And it’s a lot of work! PD Shall we talk a little bit about your exhibition “Wait” at the Whiteinterview Cube in London? that In the I watched short you say that we can talk about “a new epoch of materialismchanged our attitude which totally in urban living.” Adding that “if the visitoradopt can’t the wait show I move for a need faster”, as such in you a way making fun of “speed” that exemplifiesyou just your mentioned. concerns I would like to hear more about the conceptual framework of “Wait”. FA I came up with this title as a part of a full installation in the basement.the It economical is not possible aspects, to deny especially in London and New York, about thisfreaky crisis of is materialism. it that people are queuing How up in banks… Surveillancein the and daily this newspapers panic situation, but is totally which is absent in any painting. As an artistphysical I tried aspect to bring of my walking in this through the city, a portrait of the city instarted my own language. with this So, aspect “Wait” of the seven sins like you see it in the paintingsthe medieval of Hieronymus aspect about Bosch and love, eternity… I showed a short videothe of a lot railway of lockers bridge hanging over the along river Rhine. Couples who are in lovethrew put them there, the key locked into the them, river: and love forever. PD And “No Roof But The Sky” was 10 years ago a label from Marlboro. untitled: Mental Map 13 x 19 cm 1995 untitled: Mental Map 13 x 19 cm 1994 Mental Map: “on stage” “on stage” Mental Map: 13 x 19 cm 1997

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19 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER t the sed on he lives in

All photos © studio Franz Ackermann Credits: Reni Hansen & Jens Ziehe. FA Yes. Cigarettes got forbidden, the question of freedom in smokingvery cigarettes interesting disappeared. thing. It’s something It’s a which is completely out of urbanand, “No living. Roof But The It’s still Sky” something is maximum a form of freedom.On one side,by totally outdoor events commercialized and industries and onthe other side,they had buriedmyth, it. So it’s it’s completely completely a over, it’s forbidden as product, a and it’s completely a utopianthat’s why relevance. “No Roof But The And Sky” already shows up for the third time inpermanently my work cause it’s such changing a association. Unbelievable but true… St. Veit. His most recent installations include “No Roof but Franz Ackermann was born in 1963 in Neumarkt Berlin (2010) and “Wait”, White Cube, London (2010). Sky”, galerie neugerreimschneider, objec various projects ranging from urban inventory to spatial and Pelin Derviş is an architect. She worked on ba While working as the director of Garanti Gallery -an institution design in her practice (1997-2004). S realized many exhibitions, events and publications (2005-2010). urbanism, architecture and design- editor and curator. Istanbul, working as a freelance

2010 Berlin galerie neugerriemschneider No Roof but the Sky RES NOVEMBER 2010 18

21 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Churches (No.1) 2009 Courtesy Kalfayan Gallerie Athens, Thessaloniki NP In “Construction” Kapla wooden blocks are used to construct spaces,you have houses imagined and structures and then made that from the stories told to you by your family.in the series The lighting “Churches” effects seems to have inspired the chiaroscuro“Construction”. effects in this The very photographs different take work on an almost graphic quality,in and where out of focus the depending depths of field on how shift intensely the work is viewed, was thisrelate intentional to your personal and does involvement it with the content? HS When I first arrived to Amsterdam, I had difficultiesstudies, in the beginning at some point to it start became a challenge a project for my for me to create a work outside of my ownHowever, territory. it is important for me more than for the viewer, to understandphotographed that these churches in Amsterdam. were NP “Churches” was the first series of work you produced in Amsterdam,no clue as to but where the photographs they were taken. offer Was this ambiguity of location importantrelation to the to you, subject especially of religion? in HS One of the main elements that caught my attentionin these spaces was the darknesscreated an that ambiguity and curiosity for both the viewer and theof photographer. the Armenian They Orthodox reminded churches, me lit by narrow light beamsassuring penetrating a holiness through and dispelling the windows, doubts. I didn’t add any actionI tried in these to keep images, their on the sparsity contrary as close to reality as much as I could, whichare adds now ambiguity non-sacred to spaces what and to their normality too. NP Did you first see a space within one of these churches that was sparsely litthat or was you that foresaw an action for the space and then created as an environment to photograph? HRAIR SARKISSIAN When I first moved to Amsterdam, I startedme and to where to look for I come subjects from. that So, relate my first to encounter in this new city of shiftingtemporary spaces summer were the beaches that are open to the public in the summerThis and abandoned transformation in winter. of spaces was very intriguing and interestingduring my research for me as a starting into other point, similar and circumstances I foundsacred churches places which anymore, do not function instead they as are transformed into spaces for social events. NOVEMBER PAYNTER How and when did you first encounter a church thatother had been than adapted religion? for a use

RES NOVEMBER 2010 CONSTRUCTION & CHURCHES CONSTRUCTION

HRAIR SARKISSIAN ON SARKISSIAN HRAIR 20

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HS When I started photographing the churches, I was very influenced by the absence of the light NOVEMBER 2010 in these spaces, which evokes curiosity and conceals what is visible. I was influenced by the effect RES that darkness adds to our imagination and makes us wonder and question what we see.

So, for the “Construction” series I worked again with darkness and centered light. Because of the lack of information I have about each particular place I try to depict and to which in fact I have never been, it was important to isolate these structures from their surroundings and present them as individual entities.

NP Seen together the two series seem to compose the story of an empty stage-set that lacks actors and is timeless. Like many of your other photographic projects such as ‘In Between’ and ‘Unfinished’, these more recent compositions appear to both be waiting for inhabitation and completion, while they also seem to have been forgotten and now exist as spaces and memories that have been left behind. Is the condition of being ‘in between’ a clear definition or function something you are interested in within your practice in general?

HS The subjects in my work can be understood in different ways, because of their meaning or because they conceal something, a story behind that what is immediately readable and reachable to the viewer. Consequently, to be ‘in between’ is a condition in most of my works, the hesitation between what we perceive and what we don’t. In the meanwhile, I use photography as a medium to investigate the (in)visibility of a subject, a tool to search for clues or answers.

Coming to an empty stage-set, while taking a photograph in a space, I wait until the figures have disappeared from my view finder. For example, in the series ‘Underground’, the passengers waiting for the next train were forced by two policemen who accompanied me to hide behind the columns until my image was exposed. Eventually this presence/absence gave another dimension to the image itself, they are places where we imagine we can see individuals, but at the same we don’t see anyone at all.

Construction Construction (2010) is a series of images of different structures made of Kapla, the wooden block construction toy consisting of identically sized and shaped pieces of pine. Sarkissian constructed from his imagination the houses from his grandfather’s village, located in present day eastern Turkey, from where he was forced to migrate to Syria during the Armenian genocide in 1915. Stories and images were the only tools people took with them to keep the narrative alive for future generations, and Sarkissian grew up with stories about this village, even though he has never been

there, and has never even met his grandfather. Churches (No.6) 2009 Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries Churches Athens, Thessaloniki The Churches series (2009) was realized in Amsterdam, a new and unfamiliar environment with different cultural coding. In Churches, the photographed churches no longer serve as sacred spaces, but have been turned into public spaces for social activities, such as reception halls, or music and dance clubs. By intentionally using only sparse natural light, these spaces are invested with a sacredness and atmosphere they no longer possess through their function. RES NOVEMBER 2010 22

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Churches (No.11) 2009 Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries Athens, Thessaloniki

Athens, Thessaloniki Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries 2009 Churches (No.3) RES NOVEMBER 2010 24

27 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER

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Hrair Sarkissian Born in Damascus (1973), Hrair SarkissianAcademie studied photography (Amsterdam). at the Recent Gerrit exhibitions: Rietveld 10th SharjahGalleries Biennial (2011); (Athens ‘Underground’ 2010); Thessaloniki Kalfayan Photobiennale 2010 (in collaboration11th Istanbul Biennial with Kalfayan (2009); Galleries); ‘Disorientation II’ (Abu Dhabi, 2009-2010);(Thessaloniki, ‘Unfinished’, 2007 / Athens, Kalfayan 2008); Galleries ‘New Ends, Old Beginnings’,In 2010 The he did residencies Bluecoat Gallery at The (Liverpool, Delfina Foundation 2008). (London) and at PlatformArt Center Garanti (Istanbul). Contemporary He participated in the seminar ‘Themethods. lure of the Cultural lens in art practice Heritage, and Mobility research and Visual Practices”, TATE Britain (2010). November Paynter is Director of the Artist Pension Trust,Istanbul. Dubai and an independent She has held the positions curator of Curator based in at Platform GarantiAssistant Contemporary Curator of the Art 9th Center, International Istanbul; Istanbul Biennialexhibition and Consultant Global Cities. Curator at Tate Modern for the

Athens, Thessaloniki Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries 2010 Construction (No.6) RES NOVEMBER 2010 28

31 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER painting and cinematography. When I painting and cinematography. s the film itself. I don’t really focus on I don’t s the film itself. art. I have been always interested in art as a whole. We were very far from any real, interesting art at interesting art at far from any real, were very as a whole. We interested in art I have been always art. displayed their work, artists where contemporary Centre Pompidou knew that there was We that time. dreams. We were only distant but they and the Guggenheim, in Venice, about the biennial we also knew the world. from the rest of were isolated cinema was, and when your first contact with you moved into cinema. I was wondering HUO In the 70’s your first film? when did you make got hold of a but that is when I that, in 1975. The concept was there long before HH I made my first film camera that year. HUO And did you start to think about the concept? when Bunuel, Pasolini, liked cinema. I was influenced by Luis I really the army. HH When I returned from allowed to be shown in Armenia during the Soviet But they weren’t Godard, Chabrol, Truffaut… Fellini, When I first saw “Á bout de Souffle” them through reading about their work. only knew about Union. We a classic at that time. [Breathless] by Godard, it was already you had a camera, what were before HUO And 60’s, when you started to think about your own films, in the about your own movies? you thinking, what was your first idea me. I wanted to show my feelings. that was boiling inside HH I wanted to produce something, something a fusion actually between I have become a painter now, and it is they go hand in hand. infiltrates the other, try to isolate myself from something, it to think about films and in 1975 you got hold of a camera, so the first film he started HUO So in the 60’s a person walks around a stone, is that one. So, the one where you made must have been the most urgent the first one? HH That came later on. HUO What is the first one? That is the HH “Thebefore “The yawning.” The very first film was the one with the bold head, Yawning.” “Head.” called very first film. It’s HUO Can you tell me about the titles, because they are very simple. beginnings, no endings –as if time has films are very simple; they have no like using titles. My HH I don’t stopped. Time is the duration of the film. The title is as simple a the metamorphosis of the elements. It is just whatever you see. very concrete. It’s HUO So it is matter of fact. HH Yes. epiphany as a child, or started with Egyptian art, and Greek started with Egyptian art, DUYGU DEM‹R It’s a pleasure. HAMLET HOVSEPIAN It’s HUO And, an extraordinary a great revelation, congratulations on your films, which are bit you tell me a little can to start from the beginning and discovery for me. I wanted to art; did you have an about how it all started. How did you come were there Armenian artists you were influenced by? my artistic who was a teacher at that time discovered HH When I was young, my mother, it was essential for me to be educated, She told me that since I was good at drawing, talent. So she was the one who encouraged work and talent. to see and learn about other artists’ I focused on art. and education was very strict, me to develop my talent and skills. My quest to learn more about I was on a constant I knew more about art than life actually. I it was a desert. really nothing in it, there was things in life because the environment, living in a village, listening to Bach. And I dreamed about seeing and listening was a boy, to [Karlheinz] Stockhausen. HUO At what age was that? HH Seventeen, eighteen. we discussed his light ago in his house and HUO I interviewed Stockhausen some years formula. did their best so that Stockhausen and they HH Soviet Union censorship used to insult his dream. When I first listen to him at that time, but it was encouraged to people weren’t Art. Although so it was influenced by Pop I am an abstract artist, entered the world of art, Art. until now, I really like Pop far, HH I am talking about art in general, on an international scale. It So what was it about Pop Art-HUO So what was it about Pop these are two very interesting references, Stockhausen and because Art- ArtPop Pop seriality in his music and in you have the conception of you have another form of it is gestural painting. So I was wondering, when you started, abstract, your work is more influence. Yet at seventeen, when you were a young artist just beginning in Armenia, if there were any Armenian artists that inspired you? INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH, TRANSCRIBED BY INTERVIEW CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH, for accepting to do this interview. HANS ULRICH OBRIST First of all, many thanks

RES NOVEMBER 2010 WITH HAMLET HOVSEPIAN HAMLET WITH

HANS ULRICH OBRIST IN CONVERSATION CONVERSATION IN OBRIST ULRICH HANS 30

33

HUO Is it not a metaphor, not an allegory? NOVEMBER 2010 RES

HH As I was making the film, the film itself was destroyed, I had to throw it away, but I kept it. I kept all the smears, the blur, all the flaws. And these became the important elements of the film.

HUO But it is very painterly. It is a very painterly approach.

HH Yes, I also show the flaws of the film.

HUO You were mentioning American artists, but around the same time in Eastern Europe there were quite a lot of artists working with performance. You have Tomislav Gotovac in Zagreb, you have Marina Abramovic in Belgrade, and when I saw your films I could not stop thinking about performance art. Is this something you were connected to? Or maybe it is just my reading.

HH In the 70’s I was very isolated, I didn’t have any relation to any of the artists you mention. At the end of the 70’s I was in Moscow. I was talking about my films, and they were very interested, but no one saw them in Moscow. Moscow was the worst place to be.

HUO So you were in the capital, and that was the worst place?

HH The biggest avant-garde movement was in Moscow, but at the same time, censorship was also toughest there.

HUO So after “The Head,” what was the second film?

HH “The Yawning” and then “Itching,” the fourth one is “The Rock.” “The Yawning” is the thinker.

HUO So in the second one, “The Yawning” there is a man yawning, but then suddenly there is also a woman that appears. So how is that related?

HH There is no relation, no link. I connected the pleasant and the unpleasant images. I made them that way, and they stayed the way they are.

HUO They are brought together in the film; they co-exist in the film.

HH I took the footage separately and I put them together. I picked very absurd concepts, very unappealing subjects and I established a connection between them.

HUO Did you make them with the viewer in mind, did you think about the reaction of the viewer?

HH I never think of the viewer. You can show “The Thinker” as the one who yawns at the same time.

HUO How did you find the models in your films?

RES HH They are acquaintances. I didn’t want to perform back then. The society would make fun of the NOVEMBER 2010 performers in the films if they found out they performed in my films. So they were reluctant to perform. Installation View from the 11th International Istanbul Biennial Photo credit: Nathalie Barki 32 35

HUO So “The Thinker” is a different film from “The Yawning,” but it has some of “The Yawning” in it. It’s revelation about Bach and Stockhausen. It seems that you are very interested in sound, but all your NOVEMBER 2010 confusing. films are mute, with no sound, except for this film “Portrait.” I am wondering why all your films are mute RES where as you have a soundtrack from Händel in this one. HH We have seen Rodin’s “Thinker.” In my case, there was no deep thinking, it was just about yawning; that was what was happening during those times for me with moral and spiritual values, it was just HH Music has a very important role in my life because I am always exposed to music. I use music in my about yawning. last works, those years for me it was impossible to make video with sound.

HUO What triggered the idea for “Itching”? HUO It seems that you are not very interested in your older work where everybody else seems more interested in the older work. HH It’s the same concept as “The Yawning.” It is not really pleasant, it is not appropriate and sometimes without even thinking we start biting our nails. It is the unpleasant and the pleasant, it is the HH I want to do new things. The old films are done, they are put aside. I want to move forward. interesting and the uninteresting. HUO I understand that, but basically you are a painter. And all of a sudden, in the 70’s you have a HUO Before, in your presentation you said something very interesting, which was about making very camera and you make these amazing films. It is like an eruption. For two years there are all these uninteresting things somehow look very interesting. What is the topic of “Portrait”? films. And then there is a long break and then it starts again in the 90’s, you make more films. Why was it interrupted? During this intense chapter of filming did you do all you wanted or was it because of HH This is an old video, but I added the music later, it is old footage but the montage is new. The concept material or logistical reasons that you stopped. There are no films between 1976 and 1991, there is a long is from 1974, but I filmed it in 2006. break of 25 years.

HUO Who is the model? HH After the independence, cinematography and film died in Armenia and we couldn’t get film, it was very chaotic. HH She used to be my student. HUO Which year was independence declared? HUO You were teaching at an art school? HH In 1991. And I got hold of a video camera at a later stage. That is the reason for the gap. HH Yes, I taught until 1997. I used to teach art history in Talin. Teaching used to consume most of my time, so I quit to focus on art. HUO I do not understand in 1991 was the independence, but you stopped making films in 1976, so what happened between 1976 and 1991? HUO Can you tell me a little bit about the film where nothing happens? HH I started painting. HH I took the footage in 1974, and then I decided to show it on the screen. HUO So painting took over. We are going to go into painting but before that I have one last question HUO And it is just an electrical wire? about the films. We haven’t talked about this untitled film from 1976 with the rock, which is of all films is actually my favorite, I think it’s a masterpiece. HH At the end a bird flies near by the wire. It just happened when I was filming. So I thought it would be more interesting. HH Although I like my previous films, I don’t want to stop there, I want to produce more.

HUO So is it a film about waiting? Because Christian Boltanski once said that all an artist can do is wait HUO But can you tell me how this film came about and about the encounter? Who is the man? Where is and hope. the stone?

HH I didn’t think about it. I am always hopeful and I am always waiting for something. Maybe I was HH The rock is in a valley. I suddenly thought of taking footage of the rock. It shows our monotonous life, influenced by “Waiting for Godot”. If I was more exposed to the international museum, I would have done and the man is one of my friends. Together we cleaned the rock and some time after taking this footage, much better work. I had seen the Hermitage; Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh.. I saw contemporary art much this rock somehow disappeared. Maybe it was the rain, a flood, it somehow disappeared. later. RES HUO When I saw this film, I was wondering about the duration. There is no beginning, there is no end. It NOVEMBER 2010 HUO And to come back to the film with music, I’m intrigued because this interview started with the is like you say as if time has stopped. What can you tell me about the duration of this film, and when it 34 37

is shown is it shown in a loop? One could imagine this film going on forever. How did you determine the HH That is the classical way. I do some sketches, but I know what I am going to paint. The most recent NOVEMBER 2010 length, how many times did you make the man go around the stone? paintings are improvisations. RES

HH I found the perfect balance for the duration. The film itself doesn’t put pressure on the viewer. It is HUO What are your colors, do you have favorite colors? You use quite a lot of black and white. the right amount of time with the right number of turns, so the viewer is not bored. There is no conflict in my films. The conflict is between the screen and the viewer. What matters to me is how to viewer feels HH I like petroleum green. I like the silver green. [points at a painting] I like the contrast between colors. when he’s watching my films. This might relate back to my environment. I talk to myself, I have conflict within myself, that is why I wanted to put the conflict between the viewer and the screen as well. HUO Do the paintings have titles?

HUO How would you describe your paintings, and also I am very curious about what made you leave film HH I have a numbering system. I don’t give my paintings any titles because it is like giving your days in 1976. What did painting do that film didn’t do? The experience of film must have entered the painting titles. They are all classified under one concept, one idea, or a period of time. I don’t really stop at -post-filmic painting… political issues, for example, the a-bomb. I would like to take my time, I don’t like to rush. And with the Russian regime, there is a constant revolt against socialism, against Lenin, against Stalin. When HH I am a born painter. My education was in painting. I want to embody my feelings in almost socialism was abolished, that art was also abolished with it. So I focused on the impact that this had on everything, whether it is film, painting or any other kind of art. I have done whatever I thought of, people, I want to express those feelings. Following the earthquake that happened in Armenia in 1988, I without thinking about whether it will please the viewer or not. Why abstract? didn’t rush to pick up my brush to depict the earthquake. I wait until the feeling comes out naturally. I don’t really make an effort to depict it. HUO Yes, why abstract? HUO Why did you return to film in 1991, and about the colors, all of a sudden there is color in the films. HH I lived in a huge, barren village in Ashnak, I have a studio in Ashnak where I do whatever I feel like doing. The landscape is very spacious, I can almost see Turkey from my window. The landscape HH It’s very simple. In the beginning, we didn’t have the means. The camera I used to have was just B&W is scorched, there is nothing there. I use aluminum and bronze. I mix them with the paint. It is quite and after that I couldn’t stop myself from going to cinematography. And the video camera I had later absurd to paint something else, given the fact that there is such a landscape. allowed me to film in color.

HUO Before you talked about the pleasant and the unpleasant in the films. Here also, we have opposites HUO In the more recent film from 1991, in which there is a still image which hardly moves, and then you in the painting. We have control and chance. We have geometry and gestural abstraction, is that maybe see it moves, again, it is as if time had stopped whilst the sand film is very different. There is action, a lot a link? of sand falls. Can you talk about these two films?

HH I don’t know how it became this way, it just happened this way. HH There is another film, titled “The Earth.” It is a shorter film when I am inside the earth. It symbolizes country, nature, homeland. It also symbolizes contact with the world for me. I want to detach myself HUO And how many paintings have you been doing? Is it a big oeuvre? from the earth, from my roots, although it gives me energy. For me the inside is ‘death’ and the outside is ‘nothing.’ Nothing can kill art. When you are in the center of art you start getting into contact with HH I sold some of them. I work on a daily basis but I don’t paint what someone asks me to paint. people, you get to know others. These films were in my studio until someone found them. This is why I am in a constant conflict with my homeland, with earth. HUO Did you support yourself by teaching or did you support yourself by selling paintings? HUO Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a lovely little book, which is advice to a young poet. What would be your HH The internal market is very tough, but if someone comes from abroad and wants to buy some of my advice today to a young artist? paintings I am okay with that. I don’t expect any income from the internal market but because I have become a bit famous, some people want to buy my work. HH Most importantly, be honest. Don’t go into marketing your art. Go back to your roots, and don’t produce art to sell. Don’t lie to yourself. There is a big different between the environment I live in and HUO Do you draw? Make sketches? here [Art Dubai] Here you see kids coming in and having a look at all the masterpieces, in Armenia it’s really hard to see contemporary art. It is easier for them to look at catalogues and imitate from the HH No. catalogues and the viewer can not really tell if it is my work or someone else’s work. Most importantly, be honest, don’t lie to yourself. RES HUO So you don’t prepare for the paintings with sketches? NOVEMBER 2010 HUO One last question: you have realized many things, your old films and new films, and now paintings. 36 These are great achievements. I was wondering if you have any unrealized projects. Projects that were too big to be realized, dreams, utopias…

HH My dream is to get out my cocoon and discover the things I dreamed of during my childhood.

HUO Thank you very much, it has been a truly great interview.

Hamlet Hovsepian was born in 1950 in Ashnak, Armenia. He is a film and video, performance and land-artist and abstract expressionist painter.

Hans Ulrich Obrist (b. 1968, Zurich) joined the Serpentine Gallery as Co-Director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects in April 2006. Prior to this, he was curator of Musée d’Art Modern de la Ville de Paris since 2000, as well as curator of museum in progress, Vienna from 1993-2000. He has curated over 200 exhibitions internationally since 1991, including do it, Take Me, I’m Yours (Serpentine Gallery), Cities on the Move, Live/Life, Nuit Blanche, 1st Berlin Biennale, Manifesta 1, and more recently Uncertain States of America, 1st Moscow Triennale, 2nd Guangzhou Trienale (Canton China), and Lyon Biennale. In 2007 and 2009, Hans Ulrich co-curated Il Tempo del Postino with Philipe Parreno for the Manchester International Festival. He was also awarded the New York Prize Senior Fellowship for 2007-2008 by the Van Alen Institute. Obrist is the author of 50 books, most recently, A Brief History of Curating. RES NOVEMBER 2010 38

41 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Samuel Gottscho, Broadway by night, around 1930 this . It was the office blocks and their façades, on being itecture to be, and what do we think itecture to be, and what id-1920s the appearance of many cities. After the appearance of many tions of xture of a city’, its ‘composition’, the city’, its ‘composition’, xture of a Authors such as Franz Hessel and Walter Benjamin showed how much the city had become a kind of become a kind of much the city had showed how Benjamin Hessel and Walter Authors such as Franz the unconscious, undercurrents and focused on the the surrealists whereas for passers-by, legible text space are, with urban of these grapplings The consequences the city. the subtext of and addressed such as the ‘te expressions else, reflected in common if nothing ‘language of architecture’. of a text’ and the ‘architecture other, there were Along however, architecture, textuality and the metaphorical connection between with not construed as contributions to initial remarks, for example, were Chesterton’s more immediate links. that posed the questions: statements more as urban spaces. They were regarded a new discourse about in arch consequences of greater textuality what do we expect the were nothing new, of and palaces halls on buildings such as churches, town about this? Inscriptions along with street and lighting”[6] ubiquity of lights – including “commercial course. But the growing a new situation that radically altered interior lighting – created as part of the large-scale commercialisation the neon sign became a mass medium War, the First World of public space. Against came under between textuality and architecture this backdrop, the relationship began to spread “like a network above the Illuminated advertising an entirely new kind of scrutiny. the upper outline of ubiquitous glow of street lighting; it projects light appear.”[7] which horizontal and vertical strips of Although the initial trend was more often than not for illuminatedbillboards, the situation soon changed with the introduction of light boxes, which were first lit up by bulbs and then predominantlyby neon tubes. The new medium proved highly capable of meeting the growing demand for mass product communication. For a huge range of advertising contexts, it represented a serious alternativeto billboards, newspapers and poster pillars. The neon light notchanged only the face of buildings, roofs and exterior walls, but it alsoaltered the appearance of different times of day, and particularlynight.the Such was its appeal that shortly after introduction, a raft ofother, very different formats began to emerge. Slogans and companynames shone out from static cubes, manifested themselves as rapidlyflashing texts or appeared on billboards that lit up as people walkedby. The latter comprised a field of tightly packed bulbs that could display letters in a staggered sequence. which mimicked the chronology of film, were often Running lines of text, used to report the news as well. The term “modern home newspaper”[8] of soon gained currency as a description for these illuminated walls words. But the application of this principle extended much further also possible to display whole pictures, short scenes or combina images and texts. This underpinned the close relationship between Many of new and dazzling format and the equally young medium of film. these brightly lit signs even won a certain degree of fame. The m for example, sekt (sparkling wine), Kupferberg-Gold advert for Germany’s used a sequence of neon tubes to depict a glass of sparkling sekt slowly poured from a bottle. ally g of ented. bly The

Roland Barthes of traditional courtly festivities, of se this was a principle applicable to a e drawn from the innumerable centres e drawn from the innumerable for people to ‘register’ their presence. in urban contexts, but also to ty could be read – cropped up repeatedly lights. The fusions of words, images cal message … A text is much more a cal message … A text But in spite of, or precisely because of this effect, which Chesterton because of this effect, or precisely But in spite of, lights was anything but was unable to escape, his opinion of the trend that they repres positive. The writer instead criticised the of the him, the increase in street-facing illuminations was one For and the need to continu factors that led to urban sensory overload Benjamin Georg Simmel and Walter focus of attention. switch one’s What [1] nerves.” the of life the of intensification “the as this described use of this tendency was the Chesterton found so objectionable about had since become an everyday light and words in urban spaces, which seemingly he thought back to the heavy heart, phenomenon.[2] With the culture and lamented that forgotten contexts of European festival such the deep significance of modern age had “completely destroyed need to express anythin colors and lights. People rarely feel the because it is invaria importance with this kind of illumination, used to proclaim the trivial.”[3] Gilbert Keith Chesterton took a stroll along New York’s Broadway in took a stroll along New York’s Gilbert Keith Chesterton century. The force of the argument, however, was directed at the fundamental textualization of however, The force of the argument, century. th culture rather than words on buildings specifically. It was bemoaned at the time that the language of It was bemoaned at the time that the language culture rather than words on buildings specifically. Hugo, in his novel of expression. Victor architecture was being warped in a way that weakened its power in rightly talked of a paradigm shift from architecture to printing, and noted Notre-Dame de Paris, this context that architecture is a special kind of writing – a way MICHA O. GOEBIG TEXT IN GERMAN. TRANSLATED BY made of words that reveals a single theologi “A text is not a line MARC GLOEDE ar space … A text is a fabric of citations, which multi-dimensional of culture.” WHEN BRITISH WRITER impact of its dazzling 1922, he was enraptured by the aesthetic that he was reminded and luminous signs held him in such thrall illuminations and fireworks. Chesterton called attention to the question of how light was used come under discussion in the the relationship between words and architecture, which had already 19 a “chronicle made of stone.”[4] He read Notre Dame Cathedral as he would a book, regarding it as metaphorical rhetoric of architecture as a text – and of how a ci in the work of various authors in the decades that followed, becau broad spectrum of “contexts.”[5]

Erich Mendelsohn, Broadway, 1924 RES NOVEMBER 2010

IN AN URBAN CONTEXT URBAN IN AN MODERN CITY. ARCHITECTURE AND LIGHTS AND ARCHITECTURE CITY. MODERN

THE INTERWEAVING ILLUMINATIONS OF THE THE OF ILLUMINATIONS INTERWEAVING THE 40

43 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER These radiant messages increasingly transformed the atmospherecreated a unique of the cities and and glamorousevery architecture evening of light. Day-to-dayto evaporate worries in their and hardships glow, at least temporarily. seemed The objections voiced byBenjamin Chesterton, were pushed Simmel aside and in favor of ecstatic indulgence in this brightKrakauer new world. turned Siegfried his attention to this maelstrom of urban lights – fromOsram the to the lampLicht manufacturer lockt Leute slogan – in his novel Die Angestellten.“the For him, masses the city from estranged their own flesh.” Krakauer wrote that “thetransforming light throws a cloak them. over Through the masses, its mysterious powers the glowintoxication.”[9] becomes substance, the Looking distraction back, it comes as no surprise that bigfor businesses this form of attraction found increasing and spectacle. use The triumphal march oflight neon architectures signs and the emergence as a concept of in its own right was most conspicuoussurvived in thebooming the USA war that unscathed. had If we now take into consideration this architectural approachaspects to public quickly spaces, several emerge which interesting set the tone for this new medium. Particularlyinitial pressing noteworthy need to hide the was technical the gadgetry behind thethe lights. ‘negatives’ The challenge of the constructs was to fit into the ‘positives’ of architectureWhat had that to fade were into visible the background in daylight. during the day, took on a life of its own ata previously night, revealing concealed cosmos of words. During this boom period,to subvert only rare attempts these genuinely were made phantasmagorical concepts and toform cast a critical of media façade. eye Oskar over this Nitschke’s early 1936 design for his Maison de ladirection Publicité took but tellingly a step in this never saw the light of day. The architecture had to serve tangible commercial and politicalcontext, interests. this functionalization In the metropolitan fed the growth of text-imageincreasingly combinations, spectacular which became as time went on. The interplay betweensize and technical scale of the message possibilities was crucial and the for the architecture of lights.example, It was significant, that after a certain for point new building materials andtechniques innovative meant static that construction exterior walls no longer had to serve a load-bearingthis free them function. from traditional Not only did conventions, but it made them availablewith glass, for steel, new uses. concrete Construction and lights and as a result thinking in termstransformed of space and architecture the exterior walls of skyscrapers and made windowsof façade could their now new be used skin. for purely The communicative new type purposes, and openedexpression up new forms in of the truest sense ofthe word. This fixation on thethe exterior, architecture however, of the meant shell that was often neglected. For the lights thatwere hung from few the articulated outside, there cubes with an inner bearing structure.Paris At the World’s Palais Fair in 1900, de l’Electricité, the talk was of “unattractive for the light bulbthe skins.”[10] corresponding In the United development States, in places such as New York and Las Vegasparadigmatic took on an almost form. The contemporary feuilleton, however,messages pointed and out the that words the advertising they contained were diverging because(S. of the Krakauer). increase in neon Words signs disengaged from their meanings and setcommunication. free other opportunities They became for abstract symbols, a pictorial script akin to hieroglyphics.[11] For a deeper understanding of the phenomenon, the example of Lasenlightening. Vegas proves particularly And it is no coincidence that a critical discourse ontext, the relationship images and between architecture emerged in the city during the 1960s and 1970s. “Learning from Caricature of the neon sign advertising Kupferberg-GoldLustige from Blätter, 4 December 1912 Façade design by Oskar Nitschke, Maison de la Publicité, Paris, 1936

Façade design by Oskar Nitschke, Maison de la Publicité, Paris, 1936 RES NOVEMBER 2010 42

45 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER ities and volumes of light. In ities and volumes of light. uctions, which can be liberated of canvases and screens. [20] As a e to Toyo Ito’s “Tower of Winds” of of Winds” “Tower Ito’s e to Toyo of these being realised, however, of these being realised, however, from the film Blade Runner (1982), to expensive LED screens shows that pure focus on the two-dimensionality creen media architecture. Only recently creen media architecture. Only recently living room of the cities, namely the c space, no buildings seemed immune e contemplation of textures, space and e contemplation of textures, space and media and public spaces. It reminds us [19] Interestingly, and somewhat strangely, and somewhat strangely, [19] Interestingly,

[18] Eschewing conventional strategy, their architecture of light actively weaved together

another. It is precisely in this respect that this theoreticalapproach that had correlated been raised with by Michel the questions Foucault and Gilles Deleuze on the basis of whatWhereas ‘text’ suture means. theory addressed how stereographic imagesFoucault are stitched and Deleuze together turned into their fabric, a attention entirely to the Latin originmeaning of the what word is woven. – textum, This focus on the text did not concentrate onrather its distancing the character character, of how it was but weaved together. As the number of publicfaçades spaces increased, used as media this interweaving or suture theory slowlyin architectural became a subject for circles. discussion From the aforementioned examplesSquare of Las with Vegas, their Broadway brightly and Times lit displays, it was plain to see how obsoletemedia the façade understanding as a surface had of become. the The big casinos, in particular,of words, through lights their and combinations images, attempted at a very early stage to blur the linesexterior. between interior and those spaces that were otherwise thoughtof as being strictly separate.history, As it a piece makes of architectural reconsideration a of newer media façades entirely worth our while. As early as the 1960s, the Archigram urban architectural group was designing highly specific City” – which deliberately “Instant City” and “Walking Pod”, concepts – such as “Plug-in City”, “Living textures. The chances incorporated the idea of interweaved media of the media façades seemed to be as slim as a real-life rendering new urban situations. Nonetheless, between media façades and which also pointed to the relationship an ongoing influence on façade-based and utopias were to have these (cinematic) architectural images interiorization of publi ideas and discussions. In the wake of an The television, which had previously been for ‘public viewings’. to being fitted with an ‘urban screen’ found its place in the shackled to the family home, increasingly these new screens would “latch onto had the impression, that public squares. It was unavoidable, one like parasites.” the body of the building that hosts them debates. Many discussions, agenda of various historical this development was dropped from the (mostly in referenc particularly those that began in the mid-1980s to the technical dimensions 1986), were confined to problems related arranged in isolation on exterior digital scenarios there was another raft of pseudo-interactive result, modus operandi for flat-s surfaces, offering the putative ‘user’ a dynamics of such surface-focused again ignore the separate have positions begun to emerge, which can be weaved together with the three-dimensional volumes projects, and ponder the question of how that an innovativ help of lights. It becomes clear in this context Architectural& firms such as Herzog and high-end technology. media is not necessarily bound to new de Meuron and realities:united are freeing the discussion from a of media façades, and opening it up to include the room-filling capabil screens that took hold in the 1980s. doing so, they are disengaging themselves from the fixation with the façade in two respects. Firstly, realities:united, this entails a historical reflection of the media For cooperation with the former Archigram architect Peter Cook for the BIX project in Graz tapped into the from a technical 1960s. Secondly, discussion about textures of images and light which began in the the neon lights concept alluded to the early forms of illuminated advertising in the urban standpoint, 1920s. This recourse to an old electrical light medium as opposed big budgets are not a prerequisite for the progressive design of that media façades should be thought of as three-dimensional constr from their two-dimensionality by the depth of the light.

[17] People began to see the screen more as a

It is now interesting to see that the issue of boundaries was being discussed at almost exactly the same time in the fields of literaturephilosophy. and But this was a debate that made little reference to texts – such as the neon sign – that could genuinely be considered as being in the public arena. So Foucault’s fundamental questions, for example,to the relationship as and limitations of the categories of text, languageand author continued to have little appreciable influence. [14] What stood out far more was a continuous manifestation of the categories of interior, exterior and façade. Even media artists, who increasinglyworked with billboards and display screens from the early 1980s,not that were interested in the architecture itself. It was much more aboutissue the of public space and its capitalist determination. In reference to

kind of complex three-dimensional nexus than as a surface separating one part of the room from this early form of media art, Inke Arns rightly said “the workpublic of visual space, artists which is increasingly explores the changing theme of under the influenceinterests. of mass media Pioneers and commercial in this field include Dan Graham, Hans Haacke,Jenny Holzer.” Sanja [15] Ivekovic, Works such as Holzer’s Jochen Gerz “Private and Property Created“Aim, Crime” Race, (1985) Take, and Steal” Les project Levine’s – realized in 1982/83 in Los Angelesaddressed and Minneapolis the relationship – mainly between advertising and the otherand raised symbols questions and text about that surround the determination it, of public space by unspoken/invisible laws. [16] The façades and the media emblazoned upon them continued to take thewall form that of a substantial tacitly accepted the categories of interior and exterior.critically The need to break interrogate through this and wall was only phrased as a problem somethis, considerable it was important time to address later. For with the visual imagery of theseposed façades. questions Such debates regarding again public and private municipal structures,discussion and about set the the scope scene of capitalist for a polemic practices. The fundamentalreflection classification on architectural of and therefore categories, however, barelyit was came an academic to the critics’ discussion attention. about Interestingly, the medium of film that led to a massivebillboards questioning and of exterior walls as media spaces. In a debate about filmlate 1960s, equipment the big that screen began came in the under critical scrutiny. Jean-Pierreexample, Oudart focused and much Stephen attention Heath, on the for subject of cinematic space, wherebyattached great importance to the idea of the suture was (literally: needle). But this arrangement was not examined solely from the perspectiveLinguistics of architectural and semiotics theory. also entered into the picture throughandMichel the analysis Butor – both in of terms Roland of a contemporary Barthes sign theory and a broadercomprises concept text. of what Drawing on Ferdinand de Saussure’s theories,linguistic a direct analogy and architectural was made between structures, and particularThe city attention was interpreted was devotedas a coherent to the urban system sphere. of symbols that coulddefined be read like the city a text. as a ‘discours’ Barthes (speech) and ‘écriture’ (writing)around and described in it as ‘une sorte those who de lecteur’ moved (a kind of reader). [13] Las Vegas”, an in-depth treatise by the architects Robert Venturi,Izenour, Denise played Scottkey a Brown part and in this. Steve It was highly critical of the directionarchitecture in which symbolism appeared to be heading. in [12] Times Square, New York Jenny Holzer, Private Property Created Crime, 1985, RES NOVEMBER 2010 44

47 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER in surfaces and the interwoven in surfaces and the seum, whose textures of light look textures of light seum, whose will be confronted with textures and will be confronted with age in three dimensions. Witness dimensions. Witness age in three irregular rather than a flat surface, rather than a flat surface, irregular m studies (FU Berlin) and is active in a m studies (FU Berlin) and is active in a pixels on a screen, coding sequenced pixels on a screen, ures can be seen in one of the latest ures can be seen in ast, and gains a more sculptural value and gains a more sculptural ast, ntral computer linked to the building’s to the building’s ntral computer linked [21]

NOTES [1] Georg Simmel. “Die Großstadt und das moderne Geistesleben”, in: Georgdie Freiheit. Simmel, Essays, Das Individuum Berlin und 1984, p. 192-204, here p. 192, Walter Benjamin,seiner technischen “Das Kunstwerk Reproduzierbarkeit. im Zeitalter (third edition)”,Volume in: 1.2, Walter published Benjamin, by Rolf Tiedemann Gesammelte und Hermann Schriften. Schweppenhäuser. 508, Frankfurt here particularly am Main 1991, p. 471- p. 499 and 505. [2] At the same time as Chesterton’s voiced his criticism, Germanyinvestigation stood at the into forefront the physiological of an intensive and psychological impactTeichmüller, of light in “Das the urban Lichttechnische context. See: Joachim Institut der Badischen Technischenissue 1930, 1, Berlin, Hochschule”, p. 29-30 in: and Das issue Licht, 2, p. 55-59 volume 1, [3] Gilbert Keith Chesterton is cited here by Dietrich Naumann,Nacht”, in: “Leuchtende Leuchtende Bauten: Bauten: Architektur Architekturder der Nacht,2006, published p. 16-21, by here Marion p. 18. Ackermann, Ostfildern-Ruit [4] Cf. Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482, Paris 1967, particularly[5] Cf. in particular p. 136 and 155. the extensive treatise on this topic published“Text”, by Manfred published by Smuda Manfred Die Großstadt Smuda, Munich als 1992. [6] Cf. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Lichtblicke. Zur GeschichteMunich/Vienna1983. der künstlichen Helligkeit im 19. Jahrhundert, [7] Anne Hoormann, Lichtspiele. Zur Medienreflexion der Avantgarde2003, p. 247. in der Weimarer Republik, Munich [8] Johannes Fritz, “Die Moderne Hauszeitung”, in Seidels Reklame issue 11, 8, August 1927, p. 361-362. By rethinking the screen as something that can be applied to an that can the screen as something By rethinking visible text or im possible to see the have made it realities:united of Graz art mu the BIX exterior lamps illuminating the fluorescent out from can easily be made and images Words distance to the building. on your different depending which the eye array of 3D light effects, an overwhelming the façade reveals however, Up close, afar. as the traditional realization of images as a complete picture. Consequently, is unable to perceive the p on top of the surface is consigned to merely another layer text next step in the concept of interweaving in the process. The a ce – the NIX. “Outside working hours, realities:united projects were the office lights on and off as if they lighting system turns right through the centre of the building.” patterns that chase thinking approach, the challenge of how to stop In the face of such an considerations apply If these trivial. buildings and images/texts seems almost relationship between we instead of just a single building, to an entire urban landscape are merely attached to it is no longer about screens that Evidently, pictures of far greater complexity. A trip around the but about images and textures that are integrated three-dimensionally. an exterior, trades the passages for a sculptural and words. The stroller city then becomes an immersion in pictures parcours of oversized pixels. He received his PhD in fil Marc Gloede is a curator and art critic. (Berlin, Film and Architecture Festival wide range of projects such as Art Walls Basel Film or the Wild “Light He has curated numerous exhibitions and film series as i.e., Los Angeles, London, New York). or “The Wolfsburg/Arsenal) Art A factory” (Kunstmuseum of Camera Action” Warhol: (abc, Berlin), “Andy 2007 He was invited curator for the Experimenta Festival Bahnhof. Projection” at the Museum Hamburger – The History of Slide Projection exhibition “STILL/MOVING/STILL in Mumbai/Bangalore and curated the in the Arts” for Art field and is a contributor in Knokke/Belgium. He is widely published within the in magazine. He currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. and X-TRA America, Fantom realities:united, NIX, 2007 mock-up

realities:united, BIX, Graz RES NOVEMBER 2010 46 K CMY CY MY CM Y M C Marc Gloede is a curator and art critic. He received his PhD in filmwide studies range of projects (FU Berlin) and such is active as Art in Basel a Film or the Wild Walls Film and ArchitectureLos Angeles, London, Festival New York). (Berlin, He has curated numerous exhibitionsCamera and Action” film series (abc, as i.e., Berlin), “Light “Andy Warhol: A factory” (KunstmuseumProjection” at Wolfsburg/Arsenal) the Museum Hamburger Bahnhof. or “The He was Art invited of curatorin Mumbai/Bangalore for the Experimenta and curated Festival the exhibition 2007 “STILL/MOVING/STILLin the Arts” in Knokke/Belgium. – The History He is widely published of Slide Projection within theAmerica, field and is a contributor Fantom and X-TRA for magazine. Art in He currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. [9] Siegfried Kracauer, Die Angestellten. Aus dem neuen Deutschland,[10] Schivelbusch Frankfurt 1983 (see no. am 6) Main 1971, p. 98. Cf.[11] Matthias Christen, “Wo Abfälle und Sternbilder sichtreffen. Chiffren Lichtschriften imWerk Siegfried Kracauers”, und photographische in: “Wunderliche Chiffrenschriften, Figuren”. Über die Lesbarkeit published von by H.-G- von Arburg, M.[12] Robert Gamper and Venturi, U. Stadler, Munich Denise 2001,Scott p. 165-186 Brown, Steve Izenour, Learning[13] Here from according Las Vegas, to Stefanie Cambridge/Mass Gomolla, Lesbare 1972. Architekturderen und architektonischer Überwindung bei Michel Butor, Text. Source: Metaphern http://www.metaphorik.de/02/gomolla.pdf und [14] Foucault, Michel: Schriften zur Literatur. Frankfurtp. 7-31 am and Main “Zum 1993, Begriff in particular: der Übertretung”, “Was ist ein Autor?”, p. 69-89. [15] Inke Arns, “Soziale Technologien, Dekonstruktion, SubversionKommunikation” und die Utopie in: Überblick einer demokratischen über die Medienkunst. [16] An interesting overview of various related works and positionsÖffentlichkeiten. is offered by: Source: Steve Dietz, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themen/public_sphere_s/public_sphere_s/ (as of: 25 Oct 2007). [17] Particularly: Jean-Pierre Oudart, “Cinema and Suture”,35-47; in: Stephen Screen, Heath vol. 18, “On no. Suture”, 4, Winter 1977/78, in: Questions p. of Cinema, same[18] Cf. author, Laura London Bieger, Ästhetik 1981, p. 76-112 der Immersion. Raum-Erleben zwischenWashington Weltund und die Bild. White Las City. Vegas, Bielefeld 2007. [19] Ilka& Andreas Ruby, “Räumliche Kommunikation. Über eine neue Qualitätder Arbeit von Medienarchitektur von Realities:United”, in in: Spots. Licht und Medienfassade,[20] Cf. in this Berlin context: 2007, p 30-59, Scott here p. McQuire, 57. The Politics of Publicfirstmonday.org/issues/special11_2/mcquire/index.html Space in the Media City, source: http:// Format: Die Fassade (as als of: mediale25 Oct Haut 2007); der Architektur. Joachim Sauter, Source: Das viertetransformations http://netzspannung.org/positions/digital- (as of: 25 Oct 2007). [21] Ilka & Andreas Ruby 2007 (see no. 15), p. 58

RES NOVEMBER 2010 48

51 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER The city of Mardin, Turkey Photo by Clemens von Wedemeyer Initially, a plinth with a projector will stand opposite the monolith screenoccur after and projections dusk. But Clemens will is very clear that he does not want to createone function something and that meaning has alone, and that what he produces shouldbe openuse. to interpretation After an initial and screening program thatwill include Clemens’films and own videos video from work, the area, as well as it is other possible that the projector willbecome travel a moving throughout cinema the with city a life to of its own. The screen meanwhilefilm may continue projections, to be used for or it may simply sit as a reminder of how a site of public andcreated. active space Located can be on the west edge of the city, overlooking the plains towill the south connect in Syria, to the sun’s the pattern screen of setting and through this relationshipanother with trope light of cinema and shadow reveals itself. Regardless of whetherthe structure there is a projection will taking reflect place, the evening sun back to the south,backside via a giant of the mirror screen. installed on the This screen will hopefully introduce a contemporary arenavalid for the city and active that will public exist space as for a current, years to come. Clemens von Wedemeyer (b. 1974, Germany) studied Fine ArtsSome at the of his Academy works are of Visual narratively Arts, Leipzig. structured films, otherscinema. consist With this of reflections practice von Wedemeyer and experiments moves between in thefinding fields their of art form and cinema, based on with a conceptual his films relation to content.dynamics, His subjects power include relations questions and of historical group resonances in the everyday. Recent solo exhibitions include: Barbican Centre, London (2009),(CGAC) Centro (2008), Santiago Galego de Arte de Compostela Contemporánea (2008) and at the Kölnischerparticipations Kunstverein at (selection): (2006). Group Revolutions show - forms thatin turn, Art, 1970 Sydney to Present, Biennale the (2008), Museum Multiplex: of Modern Art Directions (MoMA), New York(2007). (2007) His and works Skulptur have Projekte also been shown Münster at filmfestivals worldwide,Festival such as Rotterdam (2009), Cinemateque International Paris and Filmmuseum Film Munich. on a hill overlooking the Mesopotamien plain and is regarded as a “city oflight”. Recent archeological excavations have found an ancient pagan sun temple underneath a monastery and the city itself is trying to becomeUNESCO a heritage site. In terms of the cultural sector, a museum and a cinema were recently built and a film festival has been running for 2 years. But, before this cinema was completed Mardin had no projection space for some time as the previous cinema had gone bankrupt. At the outsetof his “My City” project for Mardin Clemens realized that it would be interesting to contribute to this new cinematic endeavor, because as he describes: “a cinema can contribute a different, or a third form of MARDIN IS SITUATED

Cinema was invented at the end of the 19th century, but also the LaternaObscura, Magica, The the Camera Turkish Shadow Theatre etc. used light to entertain.cinema” Therefore is much older than the “principle we immediately of recognize. It is as old as the lightalways of the sun, created which images has of bright and dark in our memory. “That is why cinemavideoprojectors is not dead whenconquer the the scene.” (Alexander Kluge). Both forthe theidea cityof creating of Mardinnewa as wellpublic as connectingspace cinema to the sun, has leadproject Clemens on the to form sun and a researchcinema in relation to the region of Mardin, whichfirst is presented time on the here next for the pages. This research was used as a the basis forarchitects a workshop in with Istanbul a group of to develop a final design for a screen thatscreen will fit sits into as a current the Mardin addition context. to Mardin’s The layers of history andopen-air reflects cinema the basic venue. elements of an All these thoughts have fed into Clemens’ idea to create a “screen of desire”Mardin that as he a statement will locate of potentiality. in This screen, in its first sketch-ups,by the architect alluded Le Corbusier to the one built atop his infamous modernist residentialin Marseille, project France Unite (1947-52). d’Habitation Le Corbusier’s idealist communitythe perfect, proposal classic, can be imagined public as cinema. Since Clemens’ firstconstructions observations of of the Mardin historical and his stone ideas of trying to create a cinemaas part that of could the city’s have been history, imagined the project has developed to focus more on howwould a modernist function structure in the city. cultural arena”. He adds: “Mardin’s historical buildingsas are these the are city’s renovated main visitor in the attractions hope of creating and a new touristic museumrebuilt context, and in others which parts demolished, are it seems fitting that public space is incorporated”. A PROJECT BY CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER TEXT BY NOVEMBER PAYNTER & CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER Commissioned by My City project, British Council, Turkey Clemens von Wedemeyer, Sun Cinema, 2010 Mardin,Turkey RES NOVEMBER 2010

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1.SRAchM. Sun window, Dara, Mardin, Turkey – 505 b.C. The design of “sun cinema” was discussed after the research together with NOVEMBER 2010 02.SRAchM. Fire place, Dara, Mardin, Turkey – 505 b.C. participants of a workshop led by Asist. Prof. Dr. Yüksel Demir, Head of Fine Arts RES 03.SRAchM. Castle, Mardin, Turkey – from 330 a.C. it was inhabited by “Assyrian Department, Istanbul Technical University in March 2010, in Mardin and Istanbul. sun and fire worshiper kings” 04.SRAchM. Ancient sun worship temple inside nowadays Mor Hananyo Workshop participants Monastery/Deyr ul-Zafaran Monastery , Mardin, Turkey, unknown foundation Zeynep Ata, architect 05.SAchSp. Theater of Epidaurus, 300 b.C. Ekin Aytaç, architect 06.SAchSp. Herodes Atticus Theater, Athens, Greece - 2nd century a.C. Sevince Bayrak, architect 07.SRAch. Sinjar Yezidi Temple, foundation unknown Elif Çelik, architect 08.SRSc. Sun Dial and Ara Pacis, Rome, Italy – 5th century a.C. Işik Gülkaynak, architect 09.SR. Entrance to sun temple Gürden Gür, architect 10.SRSc. Model of scientific sun dial, Museum of The History of Science and Avşar Karababa, architect Technology in Islam, Istanbul Zelal Zülfiye Rahmanalı architect 11.SRAch. Great Mosque of al-Mutawakkil, Samarra, 847-61 a.C. Ali Taptık, architect, photographer 12.SRASc. Persian sun dial, Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul Gökan Uzun, architect 13.AScO. Al-Haitam (Alhazen), the eye morphology, analisys documents – 1083, Birge Yıldırım, landscape architect Fatih Bibliothek, Istambul; source: Belting, Hans; “Florenz und Bagdad-eine westöstliche Geschichte des Blicks”; C.H. Beck oHG, München 2008, page 112 Academical Supervision 14.SAScO. Architectural drawings, Iran, around 1500, Topkapi Museum, Asist. Prof. Dr.Yüksel Demir, Head of Fine Arts Department, I.T.U Istambul; source: Belting, Hans; “Florenz und Bagdad-eine westöstliche Asist. Prof. Dr.Oğuz Haşlakoğlu, Fine Arts Faculty, Akdeniz University Geschichte des Blicks”; C.H. Beck oHG, München 2008, page 127 15.AOSp. Turkish shadow play, “Karagoz and Hacivat”, around 1600 Consultants in Mardin 16.RAchM. Outdoors Mihrab in Latifiye Camii, Mardin, Turkey - 14th century Selahattin Bilirer, Local Conservationist and Lawyer, Mardin 17.SScO.,18.SScO.,19.SScO. & 20.SScO. Al-Haitam (Alhazen), sunlight analisys Mehmet Baran, Mardin Sinema Association (Sinemardin), Mardin instruments – 11th century, Museum of The History of Science and Technology Fethullah Duyan, Architect, Mardin in Islam, Istanbul Mesut Alp, Mardin Museum Archeology Expert, Mardin 21.SASc. The Sun, by Al-Qazwini, Die Wunder der Schoepfung, arab manuscript, 14th century Executive Architect 22.AScO. Eye Anatomy by Al-Mutadibih, arab manuscript in Cairo National Gürden Gür, architect Bibliotheque, 13th century 23.SAchSc. Ulugh Begs Observatorium, Samarkand, 15th century Contractors 24.SAchSc. Gunes Saati sundial, Top Kapi Palace, Istanbul, 15th century DZ Architects 25. AScOSp. Camera Obscura and perspective principles, 16th century, Devrim Zeren, architect & Nurşah Barto, civil engineer. source:the net 26.SAScO.Vitruvius, in «De architectura», 1521, from Cesare Cesariano, fol. My City Project Management 12V; a planetarian perspective; source: Belting, Hans; “Florenz und Bagdad-eine David Codling, My City Project Director , British Council westöstliche Geschichte des Blicks”; C.H. Beck oHG, München 2008, page 259 Esra Sarıgedik, My City Project Manager, British Council 27.AOSp. Johann Zahn. Reflex box camera obscura, 1685. source: the net Bilge Kalfa,(Msc.arch) Architectural and Urban Design Coordination, British (Bridgeman Art Library) Council 28.SAchScO. & 29.SAchScO.Jai Sing Observatorium, Dehli, India, 1800 30.AAchO. Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, «L’Architecture consideré sous le rapport My City has been conceived by British Council together with local partners de l’art, des moers et de la législation» (1804): Coup D’oeil with stage. source: Anadolu Kultur and Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Centre. The project is Belting, Hans; “Florenz und Bagdad-eine westöstliche Geschichte des Blicks”; funded by the European Commission and British Council and led by a dedicated C.H. Beck oHG, München 2008, page 215 team at the British Council in Istanbul. 31.AchSc. Denge Sound Mirrors, A forerunner of radar, the sound mirrors were intended to provide early warning of enemy aeroplanes, 1940s Studio Assistant Berlin Marisa Baptista 32.AchC. Screen, Unités d’Habitation, Marseille, Le Corbusier, 1947-1952 33.AchC. Moscow Cinema Open Air Hall, Yerevan, Armenia, 1932 Thanks to Henning von Wedemeyer and Tim Bauerfeind, UTarchitects, Berlin 34.AchSp. “3minutes to Dante’s Inferno Steaks” bilboard, Massachusetts, around 20 miles from Boston, polaroid photo by Wim Wenders, February The project will be opened in Mardin on October 21st, 2010 1972; source: Färber, Helmut; «Baukunst und Film – Aus der Geschichte des Sehens»;MCMLXXVII München 35.AchC. Drive-in Cinema, location unknown 36.SAO. “Sun Tunnels” by Nancy Holt, Great Bassin Desert, Utah, 1973-76, source: Lailach, Michael; “Land Art”, Taschen, page 59 37.AC. Robert Smithson, “Toward the development of a Cinema Cavern or the movie goer as spelunker”, 1971 38.SC. “Medea”, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1969 39.SAchSc. Monte Rosa lodge with Matterhorn, 2010, Photo: ETH-Studio Monte Rosa/Tonatiuh Ambrosetti 40.SA. “The Weather Project”, Olafur Eliasson, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, 2003 41.AchMC. Open-air Screen on top of the former cinema and old court, Mardin, Turkey RES 42.SAMOC. Mirror Test for “sun cinema”, 2010, Mardin, Turkey NOVEMBER 2010 56

59 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER has been one of the biggest trends of art fairs and art biennales, which of art fairs and art biennales, Demands on today’s museums are museums Demands on today’s of this development. Institutions, of this development. kind of art system is favoured, also now that people are getting agitated differently to the norm. Asdifferently to the norm. far as art s. Now we have to wait to see which new lt, for example, if he painted someone for example, if he painted lt, ally established to attract tourists, llery scene etc. e majority. This is most evident in places e majority. on between art trade/commerce and He queries everything, He queries homo oeconomicus. That depends less upon art than upon society as a whole. We are currently living in a time of a global living in a time are currently a whole. We upon society as less upon art than SK That depends as man is mainly defined capitalism – in which system – in of almost everything measures the value worth and what it’s how much it costs, wants to know and his feelings, his religion and his thoughts even pervades terms. This way of thinking economic culture. Art as is perceived changes way art changes, the man or society escape this. When cannot seen expect art will lead to things being well. One cannot always that the first cave likely It’s the other. from are concerned, one cannot be separated and the art market or a pe out that he could get a piece of meat painter soon worked sometimes closer, remain connected – that art and the art market will can only assume cave. We else’s for churches, royalty or the this is nothing new. Whether art is created But sometimes more distant. linked with society and business. it will always be strongly aristocracy, a clear shift towards having greater numbers JS But there has been the ga on traditional art institutions and exert a huge influence This has to do become more important. and the galleries have SK One can safely say that the art market network, which is more globalised than others. but also with the art market’s with the demand for art, is a museum. That this Galleries often open in places before there have the power to decide where their In the end, the artists themselves depends greatly on the country. that best serves th work will go, and this seems to be the system many of the Althoughwhere the state has withdrawn its financing. there are more museums today, cut rather than increased. traditional ones have had their budgets the visitors nor get any more money for this, and neither they don’t However, becoming ever greater. And art trade has long broken into because the any further. the state are prepared to subsidise them and because globalisation countries without established structures, fairs are at the forefront in recent years, artists, galleries and art I believe that the market for art fairs and biennales in difficult. on the other hand, are finding it more more platforms of this kind. One can while other regions of the world need Europe is saturated, Western been a stronger separati also say that since the 1960s there has Biennale, for the Venice linked. Take were once far more closely non-commercial art institutions. They the early 1960s. It is only example, where you could buy art until Biennale as a non-profit institution in isolation to the Venice about the sale of art there. They see the biennales were origin art fairs. This is despite the fact that most location. Asboost art sales and to market a particular to the a kind of macroeconomic counterpoint microeconomic galleries. beginning is pendulum the spent, being is money less which in crisis, economic the during now Especially thought and possible as interference state little as wanted people time, long a For way. other the swing to its had also system this that out turned it However, better. everything do could sector private the that lies probably solution best The again. state the to turning are we Now problems. created and limits itself. art with than trends economic and societal with do to more has and middle the in somewhere ArtAndlie. possibilities the where to The is. itself money aligns often the where found been always has it have in the 1990s. In recent years, they great boom experienced by the biennales, for example, occurred fallen into crisis. Instead, we are experiencing a boom in art fair platforms will be found for art. ble, a new approach or a new theme, it SAM KELLER The most fascinatingaspect of art, it seems to me, is thatexplain you can’t actually it, and thatcoming into contact with works of art provokesthoughts emotions, and questions. It makes you curious. And this fascinationfor me – the grows more you – at get least involved. This has to do with the works of art themselves,but also the artists. Because it’s interesting to immerse yourselfand in feelings, their thoughts and to get other perspectives and views on life. It’s alsoto grapple interesting with the philosophical concepts in which art is embedded.better It helps understand us to the world and makes our lives more excitingFor – mine me, art included. always has a personal and a public dimension, whereby itsomething first tells you about yourself, then about your environment andpolitics. then about But society the fact that and art connects us with other people is also quite inspiring. JS The art fairs and the art market are major influences today. Do youinternational think the importance art fairs of the will continue to increase or are changes afoot? If we work on this basis that art brings something new to the ta JS If we work on this basis that art brings SK There are many. But it’s easiest to remember those that came first andvan last. Gogh’s paintings Reproductions that I saw as of child, a then Tinguely’s art machines,Christ Holbein’s in the Tomb, Body of and the Richard Dead Serra’s steel sculptures. TheI spent Rothko many hours, exhibition particular in Paris, works in which by Barnett Newman.that In our never museum fail as well, to move there me, such are as I by bleu Nu works Henri Matisse and Picasso’s Femme (1907).There are artworks that you lose interest in over time and thoseyou that contemplate get more them. exciting I find the that longer works of art are often like people.interesting There are people and charming who seem at first, but as time goes by you realisealways that they talk are about superficial the same things. and Then there are those who you lovemore so from withthe time. beginning Others start and love off unapproachable and distant,to know but get them. more interesting as you get So is there a work of art that you would say has moved you deeply? JS So is there a work of art that you would MICHA O. GOEBIG INTERVIEW IN GERMAN. TRANSLATED BY JANINE SCHMUTZ Sam Keller, you are a prominent figure in the artBasel,scene – the and former now director director of Fondation of Art Beyeler. What do you find so fascinating about art? SK Art understand and helps us to better helps us find our way in the world. It teaches us so much ourselves and others. then follows that art can give us new insights and views, and move us in new ways. Is that right? and views, and move then follows that art can give us new insights

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PUBLIC ART INSTITUTIONS IN MODERN TIMES MODERN IN INSTITUTIONS ART PUBLIC THE GROWTH OF THE ART MARKET AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OF SIGNIFICANCE THE AND MARKET ART THE OF GROWTH THE SAM KELLER ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ART ART OF IMPORTANCE THE ON KELLER SAM 58

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JS It’s interesting that the link between art and the JS The economisation of art begins in the production stage. Many ideas are often not even feasible, NOVEMBER 2010 economy is now so close, that even economic terms i.e. the artist either makes a smaller version or he waits until he has enough money. RES are being used within the art world. “Blue chip” artists, for example, are becoming as much a brand SK It’s certainly true that artists are not always the masters of their means of production. Even van as Adidas. What’s more, a kind of art banking is Gogh had to beg his brother for money, and the Old Masters had to be paid in advance in order to buy going on, in which art is becoming an investment and the expensive colours. Samuel Keller, director and Ernst Beyeler, founder gaining a whole new sense of value. Hard to believe? JS But this means that the possibilities are limited. Presumably, Klimt would have used more gold if SK I don’t find it so hard to believe. Art has long been an investment. It has been produced as such he had had the chance? for centuries and was once gladly accepted as a form of currency. That is not new. To separate art and the art market so strictly is a modern phenomenon. I think that the hybrid character of the SK Art production is rarely entirely without limits. But there are, of course, both great and relationship between the two is much less a problem than a solution, and that we have to redefine graduated differences between the levels of independence. That should not be a restriction, this relationship. Tension has always existed between art and the market, as there has always been however, quite the contrary. It is the strength of art that it explores all possibilities, even those between the individual and society. And it’s not the case that this has to be resolved once and for provided by the Internet. But the artist should have the freedom to decide for himself. all. But where care should be taken is with economic thinking. This is expressed through language – business language – comes into art and ends up being applied to concepts for which its use is JS To what extent does this affect artists who have a certain style that sells particularly well? There questionable, such as the works themselves or the emotions shared by people. are those who do not let themselves be influenced in any way, and those who most certainly do.

Given that there are already courses in which people learn how to sell themselves as a brand, i.e. as SK One of the paradoxes of art is the demand for the artist to produce the work for himself. But he a product for the market, this is very dubious. And if such tendencies do not stop at individuals and is, after all, a person as well, for whom kudos and recognition are important. He needs to make a their thoughts and feelings, they won’t stop for art either. We have to be very careful that art does not living from what he does. And because it’s important, for example, what others think about his art, degenerate into a product. So I believe that thinking in terms of “blue chips” is extremely suspect. he has already limited himself. Success is always the biggest danger of success. It’s the same for a company that makes a hit product and puts everything into improving this. When no one needs the JS That assumes a subjective perspective that is turned into an objective fact through the value product anymore, the company collapses. attached to it. Problematic surely? The danger is just as great for the artist, of course. Success comes up in every interview, collectors SK The word “blue chip” comes from the stock exchange, where it is clearly defined what a “blue want to buy into it, and curators want it to lend cachet to their exhibitions. The artist ends up chip” is. All you need to do is look at the market value or the indices. In the art world, however, such being defined by his success. Actors suffer in the same way when they become associated with a words are used to try to objectify a subjective opinion or valuation. This raises the question of who particular starring role. The same happens to an artist who creates a famous work. stands to gain from having “blue-chip” artists and “blue-chip” artworks. Often, it is the very same people who make lots of money from art. And because the term did not originate from the art world, JS It seems more of a problem for actors to me, because they merge into the role they are playing. For it is not particularly helpful for contemplating art. artists it is more of a cult of celebrity that is cultivated in the moment, and in which the object or work is separate from the person. Right? JS Continuing this train of thought, the economisation of art would mean that art is much more susceptible to financial crises, regardless of its quality? SK It’s true that particular works define artists in a similar way the actors are typecasted. The artist, however, often has to work for a long time before he becomes famous, and he usually finds it SK It’s already the case that certain artists are suffering (in the financial crisis). They followed hard to do something new after achieving success. Maybe it’s those artists who continually evolve either a heavily commercial path or took great risks, in that their production was very expensive and reinvent themselves who enjoy lasting success, rather than those who always do the same or financed in a risky way. And one of the best things about art is its relative autonomy, even if it thing. Though this often means that they have to wait longer for success or perhaps do not enjoy it is never completely autonomous. In a society in which everything is mass-produced, artists are to quite the same extent. among the last to be masters of the process, i.e. to do something how they want or not at all. And that will presumably remain one of the outstanding qualities of art in the future, that creativity For an artist it is also far more difficult to make plans for a career, because much depends on can happen undiluted and without compromise. Economisation is one such compromise, but it is by other people and not on the artist himself. Many things cannot be planned at all, or are bound no means alone in our society. Publicity has also become a key asset. The artist appears not to exist up with chance and with factors that can only be influenced up to a certain point. Which is why RES without exhibitions, catalogues, auctions or articles in the press. It would be just as important to many artists get the feeling that the art world or the art market is unfair. But there is no absolute NOVEMBER 2010 question whether this is the right way to gauge art? fairness here. One person has success early, the other later, and the third not at all, which only 60 63

gives us a limited idea of how good the artists are. What one can say is that bad artists in the so to speak, who generate the basic elements or molecules from which this pictorial information is NOVEMBER 2010 museum scene or on the art market rarely enjoy success over a longer period of time. That’s not assembled. Most people are not even aware of this and there are entire research projects, such as RES to say that those who are represented are necessarily bad, however. Art history abounds with Eikones at Basel University, dedicated to understanding how it works. examples of artists who were either discovered late or rediscovered later, and it is also full of people who were celebrated in their lifetime, then forgotten or re-evaluated. It’s incredible that since the year 2000, more information has been saved than in all of history beforehand and that this is increasing exponentially. And consider how many images we come into JS In this context, what do you see as the most important function of a public (private) art contact with since the creation of the internet. People who have different cultural backgrounds institution? And to what extent do they influence the art world? or languages need to communicate, which makes it all the more important to understand images and to have artists who provide us with the building blocks. The danger of not understanding SK One always exerts an influence – consciously or not – and I think it is better when it is these codes was perfectly illustrated by the Mohammed cartoons, which led to a misunderstanding deliberate. That is one of the qualities of a museum. They make conscious decisions that they between two cultures and even to deaths. And all because one set of people interpreted the pictures communicate and reflect on. Galleries and collectors do this as well, but they don’t have to be so differently to the others, and those who created them were not aware of the impact they would have. aware of it. Nowadays, a public institution has lots of important functions and acquires more as time goes on. The most important function – and this shouldn’t be forgotten – is that artworks are collected in the first place. If an artwork is not collected, it gets lost. The second most important point is that this collection is maintained. With modern art, in particular, this is not a given. All works of art have a ‘half-life’, not just in terms of the level of interest they generate, but also because of the materials. It’s also important that an institution exhibits a work in the right way, and that decisions are made as to what is good art, what is relevant and what is related. The next factor is the how art is communicated, which includes publicity, but also communication in the broader sense, i.e. guided tours, workshops, audio guides, websites, information panels and children’s games, which establish a connection between visitor and artwork.

An art institution should provide a way for people to get their bearings in an ocean of art. Not just in the geographical sense, but also in terms of time, by linking things historically and showing how the new and the old are related. And also by creating connections to the wider context and showing that art does not exist in isolation, but is rooted in history and society. This entails the additional function of education.

JS That ties in nicely with my next question about art in the public arena. A collection implies a process of selection, as does an exhibition (as a compilation with new things to say), and the communication of art takes this one step further. Why is it so important then to bring society into contact with art?

SK On the one hand, there is the inexplicable reason that art has always been there, that creating art is apparently a basic human need, and that for many people it is also a basic need to look at art. These needs have to be satisfied. On the other hand, art has many important secondary functions within a society – as a kind of catharsis almost. Society expresses certain things through the medium of art that it is otherwise unable to. Artists are like researchers and their ‘results’ can find new and valuable application in other disciplines such as business. The ideas also precipitate into architecture, advertising, film, fashion and any number of other fields.

Then the question arises as to why society wants to keep art for itself: as a locational factor, for Fondation Beyeler from South Photo: Serge Hasenböhler prestige, promotion, entertainment, identity or education? We are living in a time of such a flood RES of information and images, that we categorically need people who can create these codes in the NOVEMBER 2010 first place – reading and understanding the images. The artists are those who create the letters 62

65 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER the same. It’s possible that art criticism is simply theone that has been affecteddoesn’t mean the that most.it is no But longer that needed. We had an interesting round-tableat Art discussion Basel, about about the form this and function of art criticism, and aboutby the how majority it is demanded of people who and work desired with art. JS Art criticism also has the important role of making certainright? artists and positions public, is that SK Art criticism has possibly lost something in this role, in that thewill artists make them wait for famous. the critic This who function is carried out by otheroften people already today. Gallery cleared owners out the studio have before the critic arrivestoday on the that scene. artists And it is have also direct the case access to the public via the internet. JS The progression of art was originally, and as early as 20 yearsEurope ago, heavily and North centred America.around Now there is a movement towards Asiawhich and is Latin also tied America, in with the economy. something what To extent can the European institutionsgeo-cultural sustain importance? their Will the art movement spread acrossremain the whole the driving world, and force? will Europe SK People all over the world have always expressed themselves throughplace with art. artists. Europe It’s isn’t just the that only the art elsewhere has manifestedbeautifully itself in other illustratedways. This in our is exhibition through the Africanby the Beyelers. and Oceanic works that were collected The concept of the modern, visual artist – the free art – is, however,brought to America a European one, by which emigrants. was And the traditional centresthese of art have are, always of course, changed in Europe. – take But Florence and Venice, for example,enjoyed which in none the of 20th their century former prominence. Then it was Paris, Berlinafter and the Vienna, Second World New War, York and as well the trend has been spreading for a number of yearsSouth Korea now. Japan were and simply earlier than other Asian countries,Brazil and in Latin or Mexico America first. it was Now it’s probably the whole of South America. Africathought and of the as art Middle backwaters, East were long but that has changed too. The great centresless important. of art are There becoming are now more places in which art is producedhegemony and displayed, of individual breaking cities. the Economic and political developments are going much the same way. But I think that Europe is not just losing, it’s gaining as well. It is only losingimportance. in relative Overall interest in art is rising massively andart, a European is suddenly invention, going global. namely modern Art is also associated with certainrecognition, values, such liberty, as individual freedom of expression and human rights:European profoundly values, humanistic which are disseminated values, through art. And the fact that countries in places such as Africa, the Middlein East this and “visual Asia have arts” an interest concept, shows that it has something to offerthere people is something and societies, positive that in it – a resource that they can use and thatunderstanding manifestly promotes among nations. Just as people wouldn’t trade withgain, each they other surely if they wouldn’t had nothing exchange to culture either.

SK Art criticism has changed, but it is not impossible. Both the overviewhave become difficult, and the outsider’s but so much view has changed in the world that hardly any position has stayed JS This issue of art criticism and theory is also exciting. Artthat criticism is to say, in the traditional is barely possible sense any more, of taking up an external positionto know on a certain the subject theme. matter One has inside out to form any kind of opinion. Anddifficult it will become to increasingly comprehend the phenomenon of art and how it is disseminated. SK That is without doubt an exciting question that will never definitelybeing asked be answered. and never stops It never being answered. stops And the boundariescontinually of what is and being isn’t questioned art are also and changed by the artists. That’sanswers. why there For are a long no time, conclusive artists were the only ones who made pictures.everyone Today, on YouTube where – can write and make images – the question as to what is art rears its head again. JS This once again highlights the fact that in the end the question remains:what is declared what is actually as art? art and SK The power (of images) is illustrated by the fact alone that the Christianefforts church to secure made the such best huge artists and claim the greatest picturessuch as Islam for itself. and In Judaism, other religious, certain images were banned. No one wouldthese images go to these did lengths not have if a certain power. At the same time, we are closerstatement than ever by von to Beuys the radical “everyone is an artist”, not least becauseus today of the instruments on computers. available to JS That is the exciting thing about research projects such as Eikoneswhich (on look the at power how conditioned of images), we are to images, including in terms of ourlooking, aesthetic perceiving capabilities and judging – of how certain forms take effect. Photo: José Ceballos Art Education in the museum RES NOVEMBER 2010 64 KA Dirimart.pdf 1 20.10.2010 14:46

Europeans can be thankful that there are other cultural circles that have an interest in art. Because if modern art wasn’t such a strong concept, the opposite would be true and we would have to import it from other cultures. Art is not a one-way street and there is always a shift, which is obvious from the way that modern art found inspiration in Africa. Japanese and Chinese art also had an enormous influence on modern art, as we will see again in the Vienna exhibitions. They would be unthinkable without Japanism. I’m therefore of the opinion that the exchange is a very positive one, but one that unavoidably involves all negative aspects of globalization. Something gets lost, something else comes in. But overall I see this as a positive trend, quite apart from the fact that we probably don’t have any other choice. We cannot remain the centre of the geo-political world.

Although it’s clear that professionals set the tone in the art world, the question of what art is has to be verified by the populace so to speak. A museum with no visitors or a gallery in which art collectors buy nothing, will not work. In this way, the public legitimise the decisions made by art experts.

What’s also interesting is the thought that if one day a billion Chinese or Indian people begin to get interested in art, they would have a much bigger say in determining what art actually is. That

could be very exciting, particularly if other perspectives emerge that are wholly different to our C own. M

Y We live in very interesting times when it comes to art, times in which several major changes – globalization, popularization, the Internet – are occurring, which could alter the face of art and the CM art world. MY

CY

CMY Samuel Keller was born in 1966. He studied Art History and Philosophy at the University of Basel; 1994-9. He has been the Head of Communications, Art Basel; 1998–9: Deputy Director, Art Basel; 2000-7 Director K of Art Basel; since 2008 Director of Fondation Beyeler. He is also active as a jury member and a member of the advisory boards of countless trade fairs and art institutions.

Janine Schmutz was born in 1975. She studied Art History and History at the Universities of Basel and Freiburg; 2002-4. She is a research assistant at Künstlerhaus Schloß Balmoral, Germany. Since 2004 she works in the Art Education at Foundation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland. She is also active as a freelance curator.

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69 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER with and among collectors. We didn’t know the collectors but believed verycollectors clearly are that interested the good in good art. What we did know about wereand artists, gallerists, curators, and we just writers thought ok, if you are going to do a good fair yougalleries need the bestthat of the you can possibly get. You need to put them in an environmentstay, youhave where to integrate people want that to environment into the city which is the hostway and for you the fair need to to find benefit a the city too, so that it becomes of its city, part of itscity, andwell for its as city being as an international event. That was really the guidingthought principle why do people want and to to do stay that, in a place? we sortThey of need good food, good light, and andesign. interesting Potentially we could create somewhere where visitorsthere could could find be these an opportunity things and perhaps for artists to feel integrated into thein fair addition through to the presentation other mechanisms in gallery stands. BY How did the development of the Frieze Foundation fit into the fair? AS We asked ourselves, how do you make this an exciting environment?we started That a non-profit was one of the reasons foundation commissioning artist projects.exciting We always international wanted to initiate program an in London and doing the fair allowedas before we us couldn’t to do it financially, find an economic where model that facilitated this. BY In a way you are usingthis commercial model for different purposes. AS Yes absolutely! And I think it benefits everyone. Meeting of culturesituation and and commerce can facilitate can be a fertile an enormous amount of energy, and thatfor cross everyone. culmination can be good BY Since you started this fair in 2003, there has been a continuousexpansion and somewhat of excessive art fairs in terms of their format and size which naturallyfor all but also leads to fair to a larger fatigue. What audience is your opinion on this expansion,fairs, not only but across within cities existing and countries? AS I don’t think more is necessarily better. I think the quality isglobalization the thing that matters of art fairs and that isn’t a bad thing per se. Very often an artspeaks fairspeaks internationally. locally before If it you think of fairs insomewhere likeare Asia, places where they people are meeting can come alone, places. exchange They information.fairs That was at the what beginning. interested With us in the art magazine which we started in the earlymagazine 90s, we editors, would go publishers, to fairs as and utilize it as a place where we foundenormous an opportunity amount because to learn we didn’t an have a large travel budget. It wasnumber where of we people could in see a short a huge of period of time, see a great amount of work, be introducedwho we wouldn’t to artistshave had any introduction or an opportunity for introductionthat perspective previously. it’s just simply From a fire of exchange of informationuseful. and I always I think found fairs that when very you talk about global expansion per se, wein can Asia look at what’s for example happening and there the Hong Kong fair is growing not becausefrom it is London, attracting but because collectors it’s attracting collectors from that regionother and countries I don’t mean just around China China. but So one can’t just assume that proliferationyou look at existing or growth fairs, is bad. or models When of existing fairs, I think therebigger. has If there to be a reason isn’t why things a good reason get then it shouldn’t get bigger! er calm, I catch Amanda Sharp in the middle of her busy schedule and seriesprofessional of meetings. She dedicated is complete a to her job which she tackles with huge dedication and diligence. H have a network of relationships at the time we didn’t AS Although we were planning to make a fair, So what better place to start to get an overview of what is happeningFrieze? now in contemporary art than BY How did you find the transition from publishing an art magazine to founding an art fair? Amanda in providing in their great value Sharp is an adamant advocate of art fairs. She believes Her of energy to the art. exchange ideas, and channel a boost can meet, platforms where people with Matthew Slotover In 1991 along is both exhilarating and addictive. dedication and enthusiasm in later, came as no surprise that twelve years magazine. It then Gidley she co-founded Frieze and Tom message that contemporary art can with the Art2003, Amanda Fair and Matthew launched the Frieze be for anyone. Although at the time having started their frieze magazine not an easy task to undertake, Amandaof the dot com bubble burst, Now despite being and Matthew were accustomed to challenges. especially in comparison to the forty-year-old Art Basel and the Armory Show that such a young fair, 150 leading quickly became a leading establishment bringing together more than started in 1993, Frieze in just one day you can see works of art an environment where contemporary art galleries and creating innovative artists of today. by the most interesting, important, AMANDA SHARP I think there are always difficulties when youforward do new business. and one step It’s always back.two You’re steps learning the whole time, and youneed don’t to. know We had never everything done an event before, you although we had done the magazine,steep so learning it was a very curve, but what’s really exciting is the opportunitydeveloping to keep something. learning For us, as you we just are looked around and saw that everyart fair. other It seemed major like city had a necessary an and obvious step for London togoal. have one The so that strategy, was our simple I suppose, and the interest we had, was to look at the existingand think models about and try ways we could improve on those models and create innovationinteresting from within things to do while at the same time always being mindfulthing of the fact is the that art the and most you important can never lose track of this. BURCU YÜKSEL BURCU YÜKSEL When you and Matthew began working on this fair, whatdeparture? was your vision Did you and run point of into any particular difficulties? soft spoken manner is perhaps the strength behind her successfulbehind career. co-founding We chat about the an ideas art fair in London and the challenges she and Matthew face to keep it fresh.

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AS I have never drawn a relationship between the two in my head. I think they serve different NOVEMBER 2010 functions and are different things. There’s definitely been a lot of conversation in the last five RES years about the relationship between the two. People say that you might find more good art in a particular art fair than in a particular biennial. I don’t find this an especially useful conversation. It may simply be that there needs to be a shift in the way that the biennials are done because people travel so much more and move much faster nowadays that the function biennials faced historically needs to be reconsidered. If you would have a very refreshing biennial, where people would be genuinely excited to walk around then no one would have a conversation such as ‘oh the art fair is the new biennial.’ My feeling is that art fairs and biennials are different things; I don’t think they should be the same. But if people are conflating the two it’s because some curators have not been innovative enough in their development of the biennial format.

BY This art fair and biennial dialogue is due to take a different course in Istanbul where a contemporary art fair will run concurrent with the Istanbul Biennial in 2011. Being a native of Istanbul, I want to ask you if you have visited the city and what would you think of the format of an art fair overlapping with an established biennial.

AS Very sadly I have not been to Istanbul yet, but it’s very high on my list of priorities. I have a Photo Credit: Linda Nylind young family and have been traveling less in the past years. Regarding the fair there, I can see Courtesy Frieze why the organizers would try to do that because the biennial is such an incredible draw in Istanbul and it’s such an established Biennial. The fair is presumably struggling to bring an international audience and they hope that may be this might be synergetic. It will be interesting to see how it BY What do you think about the growing use of technology in the art fair format? For example there works. re iPad or iPhone applications to help navigate through the sometimes overwhelmingly large fairs. BY Again, in regard to the growth of international art events, I wonder about the repetition of AS If you give people additional tools to navigate something, it should be about making it easier, galleries and artists that keep appearing. How do you keep people traveling from one art event to not more difficult. S, the ideal situation would be that you are creating a good iPad or iPhone another? Don’t people get tired of seeing the same names? (Amanda laughs out loud). Amanda, how application to improve a certain service. Before you may have handed out a physical map that do you keep an art fair fresh? visitors pick up on arrival at the fair, but for those who know their technology and are very organized and want to plan, they can now look online or download an application a week in AS That’s a good question and one that we wrestle with all the time! It is a hard thing to do. We advance. They can study what art works galleries are bringing, and they can think ‘Ok I’ve only got noticed a few years ago that we were meant to be a youngish fair, or at least a fair that has space 4 hours, this is going to be my course through the fair.’ for young and interesting galleries and we noticed something ironic; that we had something like 7 galleries in the fair that were less than 6 years old! We started with this reputation of being this BY And now the use of digital media is taking an even more involved step with the VIP Art Fair, place where you discover and we had already become an establishment too quickly. So the question virtual art fair co-founded by James Cohan that will be exclusively online for one wee in January was ‘so what do we do to correct that’? We spent a few years thinking about it and our present 2011. This will be an interesting experience for the visitors. solution, which began last year in 2009, was to create a new section called FRAME. We brought in new advisers and curators so that we could really create an environment where the selection AS Yes I’m aware of this fair, but don’t know a huge amount about it. I’m a great believer in the committee of the fair would get a lot of information on very young artists because those involved digital. We’re interested in it, we spend a lot of time talking about it, but for me personally, I like to had done diligent research and our committee could take informed risks because they knew more look at art in the flesh. I will be interested in to see how the online fair works though, because there about the work than what was previously send just through an application. FRAME is basically a are a lot of hurdles to still get over to do something so virtual.. project based section. There are a lot of galleries out there that are just starting out, maybe they have one really great artist and the program isn’t quite there yet. How do we bring those voices into As we continue our conversation on the growth of art fairs and how they create a forum where the fair? Because they are a very exciting new group FRAME became our solution to present that people come and learn, discuss and exchange ideas, I want to know if Amanda has ever made a section of young voices, or at least a place where people can discover something new. The response RES comparison between the art biennials and the fairs? Are they in competition or complementary? to FRAME when it was introduced last year was remarkably strong. In terms of visitor response, NOVEMBER 2010 Her answer quickly makes her point: people loved it. They really found it a great blast of energy. 74 BY What about the rest of the fair? How do you maintain that energy and freshness?

AS In terms of more established galleries in the main section of the fair, I think what you are always hoping to do is to provide a great program of activities to encourage good collectors to come which ensures that the galleries prioritize the fair. They know they are going to get a sophisticated client base which includes a lot of curators as well as some very good collectors. That in return encourages them to make a big effort to do a good stand for the fair. We don’t have a big fair. It’s 170 galleries - a lot smaller than other international contemporary art fairs and we try to keep it very focused around the art that is being made now. That in and of itself keeps it very current. The artist commissions program that comes through our foundation hopefully creates surprises and criticality shifts the fair into a slightly different context from others.

BY In addition to the gallery stands and artist commissions, Frieze has a strong program of talks, films and now curated nights of music that are being are introduced this year. Even so, Amanda makes it clear that as the fair organizers, they are not the ones creating the content but ensure a dynamic freshness each year.

AS You never know until the opening day what the fair is going to look like. We do not provide the content. What we do is provide the infrastructure. We just hope that through the selection of galleries and making a strong list, the galleries feel confident it’s going to be a very good fair and that the good people will come and therefore they will build a really great stand. It’s not a much more sophisticated approach than that. We redesign the architecture each year and want every time you approach the fair for it to feel differently. There is a lot of time and effort put into making the gallery selection each year for the fair. The FRAME section, I can happily say, has been successful in re-energizing the fair one more degree. Along with the projects program and the talks, which are freshly curated every year, there is definitely a different feel year in, year out.

BY What is in the future of Frieze Art Fair? Do you have any expansion plans to different cities for example, would that something you would consider?

AS I wouldn’t discount it. It’s definitely something we would consider, but we don’t have any definite plans for any other projects at this point in time.

Amanda Sharp co-founded frieze magazine with publishing partner Matthew Slotover in 1991. Following the success of the magazine, Amanda and Matthew founded Frieze Art Fair in 2003. Now in its eighth year the fair is regarded as one of the world’s best known and most influential art fairs. Amanda Sharp is a regular contributor to the international art world having spoken on various panels and given lectures at venues including Tate, The Walker Art Centre and Yale. She has contributed to magazines, newspaper and books including the Phaidon monograph on Doug Aitken.

Burcu Yüksel is an assistant director at Derek Johns Ltd, dealers in Old Master paintings in London and Curator of Performance at ZOOM Contemporary Art Fair (to be launched December 2010 in Miami). Burcu holds a Master’s degree from New York University in Visual Arts Administration. She contributes regularly to a number of magazines and newspapers. RES NOVEMBER 2010

Portrait of Amanda and Matthew Photo credit: Linda Nylind

76 Courtesy Frieze Tobias Rehberger Why, 2010 Everything Happens for a Reason, 2010 Nothing Happens for a Reason, 2010 Nothing Ever Happens, 2010 for RES

87 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Billy Childish installation view Courtesy of neugerriemschneider, Berlin Photo by Jens Ziehe, Berlin DU Although the typical gallerist is a loner, it seems as if the Berlin galleryhandful scene of powerful is run bya united gallerists, including you… TN I have great respect for Max Hetzler and admire his courage. DU In general, it is an open secret that most of the dealings in the art worldaftertaste. have a nepotistic mean I you are often considered the protégé of the influentialHetzler, with Cologne whom you realized gallerist many Max successful projects. Theberlin exhibition-cum-art contemporary’, which fair took ‘abc place – art for the third time this autumnboth was and co-initiated although its format by you remains very vague, around seventyboth played galleries a large role took part. in the success You also of the Gallery Weekend Berlin,adopted, a concept more that or has less even successfully been by other cities, including New York. TN Really? DU Well, most art writers depend on the goodwill of gallerists andtexts, artists so they to commission write non-critical catalogue reviews or ask trivialrelations. questions, Magazines so as not to ruin also prefer their business ‘descriptive’ reviewsadvertising and ‘informative’ clients. interviews to humor their TN Not at all. I think it is a lot more interesting to read than the usual exchangefill the spaces of pleasantries of art magazines that or the cultural sections of newspapers today. DAVID ULRICHS …oh, mood enhancement is always good! So, you are not worriedinterview about me with faking you? an TIM NEUGER White tea is very different from green tea. Made frommore only theanine, young leaves which and has buds, a relaxing it has effect and is also mood enhancing.cups of espresso I used to drink but that just about gave eight me a momentary ‘kick’. White tea startsand lasts. off slowly and then lasts In the middle of the summer, I received an SMS from the Berlin galleristYucatan, Tim where Neuger, he sent was from visiting Jorge Pardo. Apparently, a magazinewith was interested him. When in an I enthusiastically interview replied that I was game, he proposedAugust, to meet which at the end we of did, only for a cup of white tea, the constitution of which hedetail… related to me in great DAVID ULRICHS

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Installation View: neugerriemschneider, Berlin, 2007 neugerriemschneider, Berlin, Installation View: I Love My Wife, 2007 Jorge Pardo

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Photo by Jens Ziehe, Berlin Berlin Courtesy neugerriemschneider Courtesy neugerriemschneider 10179 Berlin Wallstrasse 85 1 - July 3, 2010 Installation views Elizabeth Peyton Elizabeth RES NOVEMBER 2010 90 93

TN Over the last few years some of us have realized that we have common interests, so naturally we TN I prefer to devote my time to optimizing my program. NOVEMBER 2010 began do things together. That’s how the Gallery Weekend Berlin started. RES DU So you will be visiting studios of young undiscovered artists to spice up your program? Is Billy DU The entry conditions to take part in the Gallery Weekend Berlin are not quite clear to me. Childish our latest ‘discovery’? Obviously, there is the relatively high participation fee, but I understand that essentially it is ‘by invitation only’, correct? TN I have known Billy for a long time. After many years of personal problems, which he never saw as problematic, he made these very disquieting paintings, some of which I already showed at Basel TN Well, there has to be some kind of quality control… this year.

DU It would be easier to have an official remit, than to apply some arbitrary rules and there DU Nevertheless, you will have a lot more time on your hands, especially since your gallery- definitely is a very strong Cologne presence in its board of directors, especially those gallerists partner, Burkhard Riemschneider, still helps out at the gallery. There must be something going on who moved to Berlin in the 1990s, excluding Isabella Czarnowska. Coincidence? in the background…a space abroad, perhaps? As far as I know, no Berlin gallery has opened up a second branch abroad, you could be the first! Or do you consider yourself Colognian? TN I think having a remit would restrict access rather than facilitate it. TN I was not actually born in Cologne… DU While it is pretty clear to see the commercial interests that lie behind the Gallery Weekend Berlin, there was confusion about the status of the ‘abc’. Curated by someone hired by a group DU I see, but surely your gallery is not affected by the credit crunch, or will you also start laying- of gallerists, it aspired to be an exhibition with works ‘for sale’. In short, it came across as some off your assistants – ‘restructuring’ as it’s called. Somehow, I cannot imagine Tim Neuger minding hybrid form of an exhibition that nobody really wanted. By moving this year’s edition onto the gallery, sitting behind an Egon Eiermann table every day from 10am till 6pm… the grounds of the Artforum art fair, the ‘abc’ clearly defined itself as commercial venture, an accusation that has often been leveled at the ‘abc’, but which its organizers had always denied. TN I think the table in the gallery is from Ikea.

TN I actually liked the fact that it resisted a clear definition. DU I don’t believe it!

DU This year you, as well as Max Hetzler, were no longer involved with the ‘abc – art berlin contemporary’ and it seems next year you will also not be on the organizing board of the Gallery Tim Neuger is the co-founder of the Berlin based gallery neugerriemschneider. Weekend Berlin. Are you withdrawing from the Berlin scene? David Ulrichs is a Berlin-based art writer.

TN I am focusing my attention on other issues.

DU Oh, are you working on another project? I remember you showed Elizabeth Peyton in a rundown space near Berlin’s Museum Island. Will you be opening something there soon?

TN Actually, I am concentrating on my gallery here in Linienstrasse.

DU Over the last few years many of the neighboring galleries have left this area and now even Esther Schipper will move away to a new space in the en vogue area around Potsdamerstrasse. Luckily, Peres Projects have recently opened shop in your area…

TN I am not someone who follows the latest location-trends.

DU What about opening up a project space, to source younger talents, similar to Vittorio Manalese, the brainchild of Bruno Brunnet and Nicole Hackert of Contemporary Fine Arts? Or perhaps hosting some evening events at Berlin’s latest arty venue Soho House, like your blue-chip colleagues at RES Haunch of Venison? NOVEMBER 2010 92 www.b-a-s.info Nuri Ziya Sokak No 7 Beyo€lu Istanbul TR Artists’ books and printed matter

Installation View: neugerriemschneider, Berlin, 2008 View: neugerriemschneider, Installation , 2008 Societies In Minor Problems Major Rehberger Tobias Jens Ziehe, Berlin Photos:

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97 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Jake and Dinos Chapman Hell 1999-2000 Glass-fibre, plastic and mixed media (Nine parts) Dimensions variable © the artist Photo: Stephen White Courtesy White Cube OF GOYA JC We used an inherently inert form of infantile representation,up subliminal toy soldiers, self. to infect We were interested the grown- in seeing the whole synthesisvolcano. collapse mean I into a black the materials hole or are so fundamentally flawed.amount They’re to the sum total so patheticof the pathos that they that piece can’t began to attract, which is reallythe same funny. with But all then of our it’s work. NH How is it impoverished? JC …wouldn’t be able to make those interpretive judgements, becauseincorrect. they’re simply There factually are Nazis being spat out of a volcano, an Adolph Hitlerdescription... factory, mutants That beyond work was aimed at trying to gather up or presentbad this assumptions notion of pathos of historical via interpretation and so the work collapsedits own under ridiculous the weight audacity. of I mean that the work is about audacity. It’s aboutimpoverishment. absolute, utter NH So if people seriously looked at the work they… DC Yes, seeing “Hell” as a representation of the horrors of the Second Worldimpressively War is actually wilful quite an misreading to make because there are so manyThe parts interesting of it you have thing to ignore. about making hell was making a sculpturecertain that wouldn’t parts of it. allow It’s too big. you It’s to too ignore involving… JAKE CHAPMAN Culturally I think it’s true to say that our work operatesscenario in that way…in it confirms a worse case a sense of moral conscience. It’s a very unfortunateone can say about default the more in a way. romantic What interpretations of the work is thatwasn’t, they indicate on a really how fundamentally the work simple level, looked at. If youanything want to know whether to dowith the this past work then has look at the three headed mutants and askmany yourself three how headed many mutants how were there running around in 1945. NH I mean in that many people saw the work asa morally sharp artistic commentgenocide, on war just and as some have of your various re-workings of the “Disastersreaction to that of War”. interpretation? What’s your DINOS CHAPMAN It’s all misinterpreted. NICK HACKWORTH Do you regard “Hell” as your most misread work?

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NH You are amused when it attracts ‘bad thinking’? DC Yes, it intensifies all the related work that precedes it as well. But, I mean, ideally I’d like to do NOVEMBER 2010

without subject matter all together. RES DC It’s something, which seems… inevitable. NH That might be a bit difficult. JC If you make a sculpture of ‘evil’, it has to have swastika on it. As much as if you make a painting of something happy, it has to have a smiley face on it. The representational semiotics in the work are DC True. Perhaps the best we could do is to limit our subjects to two or three things that we so banal, they’re so obvious. constantly return to.

NH But however tactical and deliberately warped your deployment of those signifiers might be, the NH Your constant repetition of Goya’s imagery serves several different purposes. In “Insult to fact is that they still, however opaquely, reference the Holocaust and thus it seems reasonable to Injury” one of those ends is an attack on authenticity and originality, his, yours’ and everyone read “Hell” as, at least partially a response to other cultural and social responses to horror and else’s… atrocity? JC Yes, the first thing I think about when you say Goya is that within our own work there are so JC Well I’m not sure reasonable is an appropriate word to use in this context. I mean the work is many Goya’s. There’s Robert Hughes’ Goya, modernity’s Goya, our own various and different excessive and we used overloaded detail to vulgarize metaphysical essence, to overshoot the interpretations ideas of Goya. So even our identity, which is dealt with in terms of history, and sort threshold of poetics. of venerates him as a very particular thing. We’ve pursued a Goya, which is an entity in difference articulated through repetition. With Goya the entity changes with every repetitious move. NH Presumably the scale, as with “Disasters of War”, was quite specific in its intent? NH So the repetition is an exemplification of the Deleuzian idea of difference? JC We took a perverse pleasure in shrinking the scene and thereby denying death its proper proportion… When you scale things down it disinvests them of their presumed existential weight, JC Deleuze is really anti-identitarian, where all terms are infinitely changeable, and are always in it compresses their singularity into a mass. This rupture in scale is sadistic. flux as opposed to the model of classical philosophy that is based on the idea of keeping all terms that have a transcendent definition unchangeable. On a systemic level we form a crude macro- DC Yes, it took us two years to make several thousand figures, but in one concentration camp it took system by doubling the number of people making the work – but every time we try to discuss them three hours to kill 18,000 prisoners who were forced to run into a pit before being shot… Our the art in non-identitarian terms and rather in terms of historical continuum and historical work is 1/32 scale pathos. materialism, yet this falls on absolutely deaf ears in the art world, in which people aren’t prepared to think in those terms. They’re not prepared to think of art in any terms other than those that NH So the work does have something do to with genocide and the Holocaust? orbit the idea of genius.

JC The logic and efficiency needed to indulge in racial genocide at the level of the concentration NH But equally to say that it’s meaningless to talk about human agency seems as crude as to see camp is indicative of an industrial process. Everyone who figures in the web of industrial relations creativity as a gift from God… is implicated that form of industrial murder implicates. It’s part of our flow, our teleology. JC Of course. In fact we try to allow the active forces in our ideas help generate the work, because it’s NH What was your favourite part of “Hell”? as if they are metaphysically determined by things of a higher order to anything else. Which is to say that you recognize your relationship…that when something occurs to you, do you realise it’s DC Well in one of the tunnels there’s this one man all on his own who looks like he’s going to escape, the occurring that’s happening to you, or to put it another way, there’s that great phrase ‘language but the tunnel continues into another section and you look at the other half of the tunnel and speaks man’. It’s to do with a continuum of ideas are apparent, that are a part of your proximity to there’s a tank coming that’s about to run him over. I like that bit. history, part of your proximity to material conditions.

NH Let’s move away now from the immense three dimensional tableau of “Hell” to discuss the related NH And why did you want to do ‘improve’ Goya’s other famous series of etchings, “Los Caprichos”? content of your graphic works such as the etchings and drawings that make up “Los Caprichos” and “Disasters of War”. Do you ever get bored of using Goya as source for your work? DC Well, “Los Caprichos” are different to the “Disasters of War. They’re very odd. The “Disasters of War” are quite humane by comparison, with an overt moral justification. These pictures are much

RES J/DC No. more, or rather even more misanthropic. The titles say things like ‘humanity, the fault is yours’

NOVEMBER 2010 and ‘man lives to have the life sucked from him’. They articulate the dark side of modernity. They’re NH Do you think repetition intensifies the power your work draws from its use of Goya? dark and unredeemable and really, really offensive. 100 103

JC An absolute elaboration of evil. NOVEMBER 2010

RES DC And violence.

Jake Chapman was born in 1966 in Cheltenham, Dinos Chapman in 1962 in London. They live and work in London. They have exhibited extensively, including solo shows at Tate Britain (2007) Tate Liverpool (2006) Kunsthaus Bregenz (2005) and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2000).

Nick Hackworth is a gallerist and writer. He founded Paradise Row, a London based contemporary art gallery in 2006. Previously he was an art critic writing for the Evening Standard in London. He is currently working on a monograph on Jake & Dinos Chapman.

Jake & Dinos Chapman Insult to Injury 2003 Francisco de Goya ‘Disasters of War’ Portfolio of eighty etchings reworked and improved 14 9/16 x 18 1/2 in. (37 x 47 cm) (incl. frame) RES © the artist

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109 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Alte Nationalgalerie, Bodestr. 1-3, 10178 Berlin Photo: Christian Sievers, 2010 Copyright Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art Die Geburt Die (2003), is sophomorica conceit, drawing time as complicit. And sure enough, at the opening, rumors swirled thatbuilding the stripped-down that served Oranienplatz as the Biennale’s anchor is destined to become luxury condominiums. The show itself was filled with similar contradictions. On the groundat Oranienplatz floor was of the 17, Roman largest Ondák’s venue, functional coat check, whichwas despite easy its to massive overlook size as an artwork. This wonderful unobtrusivenessof the building’s stood weaker in contrast works, to many which either clumsily or pompouslyto themselves, called too much thereby attention diluting the show’s premise of looking outwardLohmüller’s at the present. bleibt still Haus Das (2010), Adrain a building-wide system of copper piping carrying water to the first floor where it dripped on a salt block, encrusting a bedcover in crystals over the course of the summer, was needlessly elaborate to the point of being decorative. Anna Witt’s video of her adult-self crawling out from between her mother’s legs, and attention away from engaging works like Phil Collins’ 30-minute film, marxism (prologue) today (2010), about how three East German teachers of Marxist-Leninist ideologyand economics fared after the GDR’s collapse. All Mark Boulos’ work at KW, Among the seven artists’ That Is Solid Melts Into Air (2008), a two-screen projection Exchange juxtaposing footage of the Chicago Mercantile was all too real in its and Nigerian rebels on opposite walls, tinged binaries— familiar imposition of histrionic, racially civilized/uncivilized, white/black, peaceful/violent, rich/poor, didacticism, back at exploiters/victims. In contrast to Boulos’ 88-minute film Episode 3 (2008) Orianenplatz, Renzo Martens’ showed the Dutch filmmaker’s quixotic efforts to reverse a dysfunctional system in which European photographers are paid handsomely to document African starvation and aid agencies who repeatedly attempt and fail to alleviate the conditions of poverty. By coincidence(but timed around theWorld Cup), Africa was the subject of a separate summer curatorial project, “Who Knows Tomorrow.” Five African artists presentedcultural large-scale sites in installations Berlin. Among them at important were Pascale MarthineNationalgalerie Tayou’s installation of the 54 outside African the Neue national flags and largeof wooden European figures colonists. modeled On after the neoclassical sculptures facade of the Alte Nationalgalerie,irregular El curtains Anatsui hung made two of countless flattened aluminumscale, bottle-caps overly determined fastened together. locationsWith and their accompanying political-scienceand postcolonialism, rhetoric of the globalization installations were inert and impersonal.Berlin Biennale For all its faults, avoided at least these the kinds of expensive spectacles,realities alienated they from proclaim the very to represent. human the two locations of the sixth the two locations of THE ROUTE BETWEEN Berlin Biennale, the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Institute Kunst-Werke Berlin Biennale, the an unoccupied department store on Art in Mitte and (KW) violent political captures the city’s Oranienplatz in Kreuzberg, legacies of lurches between regimes history and still-evident and capitalism. The journey begins of fascism, communism progresses through in the formerly Jewish district of Mitte, Alexanderplatz fashion stores ring the base where discount passes through a and Fernsehturm, monumental of the GDR’s in multi-ethnic, district of Soviet-bloc housing before arriving of the three graffiti-adorned Kreuzberg. The discontents as the city debates ideologies continue to define Berlin today, and political how to memorialize state-sponsored murder and immigration, repression, how to address gentrification depression. and how to solve its chronic economic Withthese concerns so evident on the faces of city buildings and residents, one wonders: Has reality become so foreign, such a rarefied subject to artists and viewers alike that anentire biennale needed to be devoted to the topic? “What is Waiting Out There,” the 2010 Berlin Biennale, curated by Kathrin Rhomberg, started from the conflicted premisereality that has recently become “problematic,” “ambiguous,” “less credible,” “mere illusion, mere staging,” “robbed of its singularity,” “even lack[ing] in reality.”

H.G. MASTERS Works by 42 artists, spread over six venues in Mitte and Kreuzberg,semantic tackled and phenomenological this anguished paradox. Announcing thewhite show photographs were Michael of women’s Schmidt’s torsos, black-and- midriffs, backs and busts fromPlastered his series around “Frauen” the (1997–99). city on billboards, the images appearedversions to be grittier, of the more H&M alternative advertisements that regularly dominateSchmidt’s public spaces. images Seen in many alongside places were unexpected accompaniments:and KW posters director accusing Gabriele Rhomberg Horn of being gentrifiers—a criticismthe press the conference, show did little Rhomberg—memorably to rebut. During seated in the Anatolianbeneath a mural Aleviten depicting Cultural Ali, Center in the form of a lion, with Muhammed—saidon the Biennale’s she couldn’t role in comment gentrifying Kreuzberg because sheearlier had just and arrived she didn’t in know the city the a few neighborhood’s years history well enough, inadvertently casting herself

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111 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Photo: Christian Sievers Photograph from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 21.5.2010 Photograph from the Frankfurter Photo: Christian Sievers Photographs in public space Photograph from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 30.4.2010 Photograph from the Frankfurter Photo: Christian Sievers Photo: Claudia Jentzsch Michael Schmidt Untitled, from the series Frauen, 1997–1999 B/W photograph Copyright Michael Schmidt Courtesy Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin

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113 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER George Kuchar Centennial, 2007 DVD, Farbe, Ton / DVD, color, sound 13’14’’ Courtesy the artist; Video Data Base, Chicago George Kuchar Eye on the Sky, 2008 DVD, Farbe, Ton / DVD, color, sound 21’36’’ Base, Courtesy the artist; Video Data Chicago George Kuchar SeaSideShow, 2008 DVD, Farbe, Ton / DVD, color, sound 21’ Courtesy the artist; Video Data Base, Chicago Renzo Martens Episode 3, 2008 DVD, color, sound, 90’; two metal trunks, photographs made in collaboration with the “Association des Photographes de Kanyabayonga,” master tape, neon signs, certificate; 90’ Courtesy the artist; Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam; Wilkinson Gallery, London Copyright the artist

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th , which features yearly reports on the The Biennale’s official offsite projects offered a varietyimmersive, of personal experiences. The eccentric Americanfilmmaker George Kuchar presented more than 20 of his rambling first-personnarratives, including the “WeatherDiary” (1986–90) series, intimate documentaries of a month’s vacation in a rundown Oklahoma motel during tornado season. In Danh Vo’s own Kreuzberg apartment, the artist covered his bathroom with custom-designed tiles featuring delicate botanical drawings by an early 20 century Catholic missionary to southeast Asia, and on his desk displayed comical doodles by former US president Ronald Reagan. That visitors had to walk through a private courtyard and up five flights of stairs to Vo’s apartment was ’s annual Almanac

art scenes of the 67 nations of the Asia-Pacific region from Turkey to the International Date Line. H.G. Masters is a writer and editor currently living in Berlin.ArtAsiaPacific He works as magazine editor-at-large and is the editor for ofAAP To appreciateTo Rhomberg’s Biennale, it is best to leave the weighty contextfly in of an Berlin airplane altogether, to another to continent and be surrounded for hoursfree by shopping, in-flight several magazines, channels duty- of action films and romantictraversing comedies. There time zones at 10,000-odd while enmeshed meters, in various consumer fantasies,urgent desire you might to return at last feel an to the reality—whatever it is—that’s waiting out there. In its largely indifferent attitude to the histories of Mitte and Kreuzberg,to skirt confronting the Biennale the very appeared present reality of Berlinitself. an agent Instead in the city’s of seeing rapid the changes—for Biennale as better and for worse—Rhombergrejecting was “art-immanent” preoccupied with and formalist trends, which wereshowcasing nonetheless artists present who in supposedly many works. address In reality, Rhombergsome artists seemed to suggest who are that not concerned there are with reality—as if a geometricengaged shape painted with the on a canvas outside is world less than Gedi Sibony’s architecturalexhibition framing space’s of an inlaid floor. star in the the best example of the transitory show intruding on the lives of Berliners—correspondingly,were signs of protest hung in many of the there building’s other windows.

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117 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER © Sunah Choi exhibitions at Portikus. Helke Bayrle’s visits to exhibitionalways openings, represent which the for beginning normal visitors of their exploration of an artwork,of her films. only She ever came to form Portikus’ the conclusion ‘white cube’ when it really waswhite, still as they empty were and the for Dan walls Perjovschi were and the Gilbert and GeorgeSometimes exhibition, there were and startedpiles of materials to film. strewn about the place,Pivi’s as with exhibitions, Jason Rhoades’ and and we Paola saw how a complex show was constructedSome from of Bayrle’s individual films elements. are just 2:50 minutes, as with her works on MichaelDragset, Elmgreen while others andIngar are nearly ten minutes long, as was the case withTiravanija’s her documentary cooking on performance Rirkrit in 2001 (in which Udo Kittelmann and Daniel Birnbaum have an entertaining cook-off). Thus in their brevity, the films very effectively convey a condensed insight into both the production and presentation of art, which are based on two active aspects, namely, the dialog between artists and their exhibition assistants (who are, in turn, mostly artists themselves) and the construction process, in the sense of building, installing, producing, executing and finally realizing. “The construction of an exhibition is the most lively thing there is,” says the filmmaker, who, in turn, produces her tapes together with her team – artist Sunah Choi normally handles the editing. “In the end, it is incredibly important for me to have understood it.” (Helke Bayrle) And it is precisely this that interests Helke Bayrle: communicationof construction, and the unpretentious i.e., the act atmosphere of work. One feature of thisher is the short fact that films the majority do not require of verbal explanations of what theexhibition artists bring and what together they think for their of it. In her films, Helke Bayrleof does representation not pursue normal of the sort modes we would recognize from TV and portraitwithin films. the context She of does an interview not work or spoken moderation and onlycommentary very rarely by includes the artist, a short such as that of Paola Pivi, who said of her(composed gigantic of several installation fountains), “There is nothing behind it. It is what it is.” Thus the consistent brevity and avoidance of the artist’ self-representationcharacteristics are the of these most palpable works, lending them the highest possiblefilm and density providing of visual the episodes largest in possible degree of openness forwith the viewer. the same elements The films that form thus work the basis of visual arts. Film-making,collecting which images, always does begins not seem with like an atavistic act to the vieweran approaching here, or the surmounting loss – for every of exhibition finishes at some point,only is as dismantled documentation and in remains the form of text or images. Helke Bayrle’s filmsinnumerable are about learning ways an observer the and a contemporary artworkactions can converge. of others And naturally learning presupposes from the one process, namely aesthetic differentiation. is showing her THE FRANKFURT-BASEDworks at their placeof origin, while the Portikus exhibition FILMMAKERthematizes space itself and its history. A table installation of sorts, made from light-colored wood with small, embedded display cabinets, three work stations withscreens flat and a projector beaming an enlarged image of the video works onto the room’s front wall. These are the elements with which Portikus is presenting the work of Frankfurt filmmakerHelke Bayrle and thus, in a way, also telling its own story. Cinema, museum and workspace – these are the three forms of cultural representation Helke Bayrle employs in her filmic work and allthree have now, aptly, undergone a public spatial realization. Visitors are able to look at labeled tapes of her works in the display cabinets, noticing once again that the development is fast-paced and increasingly often overtakes the technology underlyingactualthe medium used to project the images. Visitors can now sit in front of a flat screen and pick out the digitalized films they wouldlike to see with the click of a mouse. Or they can be content with the preset selection and are rewarded with a large cinematographicscreen. The most powerful element of the ensemble, however,stems from the unpretentiously (because they border on the documentary) applied works, as well as what time does with the films, or to be more precise, our perception of them. For as the years literally tick by, the films also become historical documentson the transient, site-specific works of a truly dazzling groupwell-known of artists, as well as that of an internationally-renownedexhibition space, namely Portikus. “Thus the world is constructed in such a way that it is as though its center were everywhere and it did not possess a periphery...”(Nikolaus von Kues) Helke Bayrle began her film collection work 18 years ago, to be precise,the with 45th the Portikus construction exhibition. of Since then, she has created overlast, 130 and short therefore videos/digital most current films. film is about Her the preparationsthese for her films own are exhibition. based on the same For principle, all of namely, observing artists engaged in preparing their JEREMY GAINES TEXT IN GERMAN, TRANSLATED BY GRIT WEBER

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HELKE BAYRLE. INFINITE CONVERGENCE AND CONVERGENCE INFINITE BAYRLE. HELKE 116

119 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER

All video captions Copyright © 2009 Helke Bayrle, Portikus Portikus Bayrle, Helke © 2009 Copyright captions All video RES NOVEMBER 2010 118 “An image is not powerful because it is brutal or fantastic, but because its association of ideas is distant… and just.” [1] (Jean-Luc Godard)

The films certainly function in this way when there is a proportionately short time period between the recording and editing process and the viewer’s reception of the work. However, another value is added to the work when this temporal gap is increased, as Jean-Luc Godard describes precisely with the quote above. For Helke Bayrle generally also observes the way in which visitors approach the work, open up to it, find it funny or tragic, and discuss it with other visitors. However, for viewers of the film it means observing themselves in the process of observing. Bayrle thus employs a double perspective. Her films are always mirrors (with a temporal distortion) that enable her to bring together the film viewer and the viewer of the artwork in the film. This effect is heightened still further if the space at Portikus in the film is the same as in the viewer’s reality. The artist developed this in situ effect exclusively for her more recent film works, in which she records the exhibitions held at Portikus’ current site on Main Island. The observers meet in the same room without actually encountering one another. And because Portikus is an internationally active institution and yet locally anchored, the Frankfurt public watches itself as it gets older. A voyeuristic maelstrom whips up. And the greater the temporal distance between the two sets of observers and thus the more historical the filmic work, the more distant the realities become – and the more just the images.

NOTES [1] “The image is a pure creation of the mind. It is not a product of the comparison, but rather the convergence of two more or less distant realities. The more distant and just the relationships between these two realities are, the more powerful the image. Two realities without a relationship cannot converge. No image is created. Two conflicting realities (…) oppose each other. (Godard in his film JLG/JLG (1994), quoted from Christina Scherer. Das Sichtbare und das Unsichtbare. In: Ästhetik des Ähnlichen. Zur Poetik und Kunstphilosophie der Moderne, Gerald Funk (ed. et al.), (Fischer; Frankfurt, 2000), pp. 189-216)

Helke Bayrle, born 1941 in Thorn, lives and works in Frankfurt am Main. She has shown her videos “Portikus Under Construction” and the MMK (Museum for Moderne Kunst) in Frankfurt am Main, at the National Gallery in Toronto, the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt am Main, the CCA (Center for Contemporary Art) in Kitakyushu, at Massey University in Wallington, at the OCA (Office for Contemporary Art) in Oslo, and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna.

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 reviews for a variety of newspapers and art magazines, including “Kunstbulletin” and “Journal Frankfurt”. Since 2006, she has been editor-in-chief of “artkaleidoscope”. RES NOVEMBER 2010 120

123 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Hopper was not only an artist, but a collector, too. His final collection(estimated included value: a beautiful $7-8 million) Basquiat will go on auctionin October. His firstyears, art collection went the same from way a longthe time Pop Art ago, the victim of one of a total of five divorces.things, I owned “Among Warhol’s other first Campbell’s tomato soup,bought I it in 1963 for 75were bucks. several Then there pieces by Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns, Robertand Rauschenberg,a whole host of others. James The Rosenquist collection would be worth at least 30 millionBrooke Hayward, dollars.” His soldfirst them wife, off in 1969 for a fraction of their value.dozens As for Hopper’s of assemblages own output, with found objects and photos: During an altercationsimply turned with the him, garden she had hose on them, and that was that. Hopper commentedwives with have a grin: simply cost “My me a lot of money” – and alongside money all his earlywhich artistic today only three oeuvre, assemblages of have survived. Hopper lived in a fashionable windowless avant-garde bunkerin made the 1980s of corrugated by architect iron Brian designed Murphy; using a lot of concrete, it wasneighborhood placed in aninhospitable of Venice and later expanded to include an apartment by Frankcourse of O. the Gehry. 1980s In and the 1990s, Hopper assembled a new collection,tasteful and it is just as smart as its owner. and It included smaller pieces by major artists, andartists. large works Joseph by Beuys, minor Gerhard Richter, and Jean Tinguely wereRauschenberg represented by by drawings, a sheet metal Robert sculpture. Hopper’s friends,York, by were contrast, given the the “bad run boys” of the from land: New In the living room hung a Julianred, Schnabel dating painting from his Paris in dark Period, and bearing the inscriptionDavid “Place Salle, Eric de la Concorde”. Fischl, Alongside and a huge landscape format by Kenny Scharf.painting Pop a better epigone one – Hopper Scharf the never photographer had a great eye as a collector, too. While Hopper back then was busy showing me shots of his friend SchnabelJulie was unrolling painting, his assistant prints of impressions from a trip to Japan that hadabstract just come back still from lifes, the lab: fragments of walls, gardens, ponds, stones.were reminiscent Framed as large-size of the color field diptychs, paintings they of the 1950s: A calligraphicsimple wall graffito whose strong on a grey bright ground; red is shot through with a touch of white. Backwas already in the 1960s, photographing Hopper such abstract fragments of walls orproud torn-down of how he had posters. switched He from was always painting to photography: “Paintersresponse fled into to the abstraction invention of photography,” in he declared, “as if in that way theyescape the would most important be able to medium of modern times.” He went and got a largestoreroom, painting from a vague, the rectangular, white color field on a brown ground.Mark “Looks Rothko.” like It was a painting based on a photograph by on a wall in Venice, where the municipalhad painted authorities over graffiti. He photographed the over-painting, andstudio. then painted it freely in his Hopper never stuck with painting, but always crossed over betweengoes together media: The with brown three shots painting from his thriller “Colors” about1988 L.A. with Sean street Penn and gangs, Robert which Duvall he shot in as beat cops. At first sight, theand movie then explodes seems conventional, in violence; its title alludes to the skin color of theurban delinquents, aesthetics but also of Los to Angeles. the The three stills, printed onwhat coarse-grained gets painted over in paper, white tell in the the story picture: of everyday violence.uses cinema, Collages photo, such as wall “Beat”, painting which and oil painting were Hopper’sbeneath artistic the surface creed: anger formally is always cool, raging. but three passions, three talents, all rolled into one explosive, free-thinking, marvelouslyirritating man: Dennis Hopper. He was most probably the last cult figure of old and new Hollywood, once both sonny boy and bad boy, star and outsider, conformist and rebel. Anindie film-maker in the world of industrial studios, an idiosyncratic and yet well-versed actor, above all a survivor, who overcame private and personal crises, filmsthat bombed, drug abuse and a considerable number of mediocre commercial parts – and at the end of it witnessed his place for eternity on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, something he despised at yet needed like a daily dose. Sadly, of all these inner contradictions and paradoxes, the most important Hopper, namely Hopper the visual artist, has more or less gone unnoticed – although he started out in life as a painter. THREE PERSONALITIES,

JEREMY GAINES TEXT IN GERMAN. TRANSLATED BY HEINZ PETER SCHWERFEL “I took the shots back then because I knew they were historically correct,” Hopper said ironically 35 35 ironically said Hopper correct,” historically were they knew I because then back shots the took “I real “My correctness. political at fun poking and stars of portraits his on commenting later, years I artists.” Coast West the and Duchamp Marcel collages, painting, been always however, has, passion photo his with sat Hopper tanned An athletic, Venice: in house his at 1997, in time first the for him met had death Lichtenstein’s Roy of news The back. mind his cast and room living his in hands his in album portrait. famous his for session photo the about talking was Hopper and York, New from in come just a bought each we Afterphoto the 1964. in back was It Lichtenstein. to gone had I and Geldzahler “Henry with one took Geldzahler sunset. cloudless a for dollars 1,200 paid I studio. the in there right picture, big clouds.” All the more important, the exhibition arranged for him posthumously in Los Angeles by his friend friend his Angeles by Los in posthumously him for arranged exhibition the important, more Allthe and arts the between lines dividing the transgressing loves who megalomaniac another Schnabel, Julian redress, this coming, the in late was It rate. to how know really not does Hollywood whom man another of photos portrait America. His in specifically rare, been have oeuvre slender his of retrospectives as long-since a document they because only if eye, public the caught have to works only the are 1960s the heroes popular the of shots black-and-white striking are They history. cultural US in chapter complete hiding AndyArt Warhol stars: Pop the to through Fonda Peter and Dylan Bob Newman, Paul day, the of of (all cakes cream of midst the in impishly grinning Oldenburg Claes orchid; an behind coquettishly Hopper’s In painting. comic-strip first his of front in posing Lichtenstein Roy and course); of plastic, them narrative. big one and stories small tells image each character, the sets always staging the photos

Courtesy of The Dennis Hopper Trust © The Dennis Hopper Trust Oil paint on wood panel, 21 x 27 x 2 1/2 in. Hotel Green (Entrance), 1963 Marcel Duchamp and Dennis Hopper RES NOVEMBER 2010

DENNIS HOPPER-THE LAST OF THE REBELS THE OF LAST HOPPER-THE DENNIS 122

125 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Dennis Hopper Edward Ruscha, 1964 © The Dennis Hopper Trust Gelatin-silver print, 16 x 24 in. Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York Courtesy of The Dennis Hopper Trust and Installation View of Dennis Hopper Double Standard at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA July 11-September 26, 2010 Photo by Brian Forrest Installation View of Dennis Hopper Double Standard at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA July 11-September 26, 2010 Photo by Brian Forrest Installation View of Dennis Hopper Double Standard at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA July 11-September 26, 2010 Photo by Brian Forrest

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These works resemble their creator not only with himself almost exclusively to the visual arts, made his assemblages, took photographs, and as of NOVEMBER 2010

their mixture of elegance and aggression. Even 1963 regularly participated in exhibitions. At that time, he frequently accompanied Irving Blu, RES Hopper’s works of the 1990s point to his real roots, co-owner of Ferus Gallery, on trips to the East Coast. In this way, he had an entry to the studios, the protest movement of the 1960s and the Beatnik met Andy Warhol with his friends Harry Geldzahler and David Hockney, made a portrait of the shy art of the 1950s. For him, it was not intellectual Jasper Johns, or the young Rauschenberg. Hopper was “hip”, worked for US Vogue, made cover-page Jasper Johns who was important, but the fast- collages for Artforum magazine, and took photographs for his friend Ed Ruscha for the invitation moving, experimenting Robert Rauschenberg. to the latter’s exhibition at Ferus: two gas Standard Oil stations – themes on which Ruscha had Not Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein, but Edward created a whole gallery full of paintings. Like Hopper, Ruscha had quit the deep Mid West to travel Kienholz, who was driven by his social critique to to Los Angeles. They feasted their eyes on the visual excitement of California, took part in all the quit California for Europe. Hopper lived and worked fun and games, and yet somehow remained lone wolves. “That has to do with our roots,” Hopper with many Californians since forgotten: George commented. “I was born in Kansas on a farm. My family had no time for art, but I was able to take Herms, Llyn Foulkes, Wallace Beerman, or painters water-color classes in Dodge City, where I was born, and later at school in Kansas City.” John Altoun and Billy Al Bengston. They all hung on the walls in Hopper’s house, and they also play the He remembers how the then famous painter Thomas key part in the photo album: In it, Hopper creates Hart Benton commented, when visiting the weekend an impressive testimony to the Californian pendant painting class and seeing one of Hopper’s water- to Beat Art, which was closer to Fluxus than to Pop colors: “One day you have to get tight and let loose.” Art. And with Bruce Conner, an outsider who lived At some point you drink yourself into a buzz and then up in San Francisco and like Hopper was a collagist, let things take their course. At the time, Hopper had painter and film maker, he produced signed joint just turned eleven. But he later took the advice to Dennis Hopper, works. heart. When the Hopper family moved to San Diego on Mobil Man, 2000 fiberglass, waterborn latex paint, steel, and automotive clear coat, 252 in. the sunny West Coast, Dennis went to acting school © The Dennis Hopper Trust The first US retrospective of Bruce Conner did not and drew sketches of his fellow students. Even after courtesy of The Dennis Hopper Trust take place until the end of the 1990s, and not long his initial success acting for TV he preferred to spend before his death, and a little later Centre Pompidou his time in the art scene rather than in Hollywood. bought one of his works. Hopper portrayed him, the Not until 1967, when he started preparing to direct polemical satirist of the American way of life, just as he did the always over-elegantly dressed his first film, “Easy Rider”, did he consistently painter-gecko Larry Bell or his neighbor Edward Ruscha, with whom he sometimes joined forces abandon photography, painting and assemblage. to create litho prints. In the basement of his house, which served as the storeroom and the garage, Because Hollywood did not like artists? “They still alongside his much-loved black Mercedes stood one of the last of his very early paintings – don’t,” Hopper commented, whose status as an artist produced with almost impasto oils in 1955, struggling with the heritage of Abstract Expressionism, the Hollywood establishment treated with suspicion but likewise reminiscent of French abstract painter Jean Fautrier. Hopper’s father found it in the to the bitter end. Which is also why for the last 20 attic and had it framed. Almost all his son’s other early paintings fell victim to the fire that broke years of his life he was not allowed to direct any more out in his house in Bel Air in 1961. films.

Hopper’s life was constantly interrupted by loss and by catastrophes he provoked himself: His It was not until 16 years after Easy Rider that he was personal history of art was a history of suffering, the mirror of an eventful life, with its ups and to return to art. First of all, the cheap production downs, its triumphs and its disasters. ““From Method to Madness” was the quite logical name of his unexpectedly became a world hit and took in 50 first retrospective, held in 1987, in the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. On show were the works of million dollars at the box office. Then in 1971 Hopper an artist who even found remnants of method acting in his madness. “Whenever I was frustrated produced and shot the suicidal image-poem The Last Dennis Hopper Claes Oldenburg (Portrait with Cake Slices) by filming I sought consolation in art.” And consolation he certainly needed, for example, on the Movie, the elaborate tale of a Hollywood production 1966, gelatin-silver print, 16 x 24 in. death of his friend and idol James Dean, at whose sight he gave his silverscreen debut at the age of and its impact on the local inhabitants of a small © The Dennis Hopper Trust 19 in “Rebel Without a Cause”. He also played in “Giants”. Peruvian village. A non-linear experimental movie Courtesy of The Dennis Hopper Trust and Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York

RES dripping in meaning, an ingenious attempt, doomed

NOVEMBER 2010 Then Dean died, and Hopper came into open conflict with director Henry Hathaway, one of the to failure, by the artist to bring painting and powerful men in Hollywood, and was placed on the studios’ black list. For years he dedicated happening together under the umbrella of a film. 126

129 RES RES NOVEMBER 2010 2010 NOVEMBER Dennis Hopper © The Dennis Hopper Trust Robert Rauschenberg, 1966 Gelatin-silver print, 16 x 24 in. Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York Courtesy of The Dennis Hopper Trust and Dennis Hopper Florence (Yellow with Silver Paint), 1997 Ilfocolor on metal, 14 x 9 in., © The Dennis Hopper Trust courtesy of The Dennis Hopper Trust and Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York Dennis Hopper Untitled, 1955 Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 in., © The Dennis Hopper Trust Courtesy of The Dennis Hopper Trust

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The marriage of art and commerce failed. The Last Movie won the of President John F. Kennedy which he photographed from TV and after 30 years at long last put his NOVEMBER 2010

Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1971, but never made it to the first and only large sculpture Bombshell on show. RES European movie houses. Universal Studios put the film on ice after it had been on general release in the United States for only two days. And Dennis Hopper the artist always remained faithful to his ideas: “For me, three factors are it is still on ice. “That was precisely the time when all the major director important: Marcel Duchamp’s idea that art is to be found everywhere, in every object, irrespective had their breakthroughs: Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, of how minor it may seem. Then the formal rigor of Abstract Expressionism, which shaped my Martin Scorsese. Actually, I’m one of them,” Hopper said defiantly. generation, however much we tried to oppose it. And finally the ideology of the Protest Movement, whose attitude has always remained so defining for me.” Henceforth he had to fight hard for every new film he wanted to make. For many years it seemed as if The Last Movie was going to remain just In all conversations with Hopper the name Marcel Duchamp keeps coming up. He had met the that for him – the gesamtkunstwerk cost him his career, his reputation, Dadaist and father of Concept Art on the occasion of the Duchamp’s first US retrospective in 1963 Dennis Hopper After the Fall, 1964 his wealth and his health. What followed were years of drug and in Pasadena. Hopper visited Duchamp in the latter’s hotel, having first stolen a sign with the Photograph with objects, 60 x 50 x 2 1/4 in. alcohol abuse; madness seemed to have no method at all. Evil minds company’s name, which he then got his idol Duchamp to sign for him. The emblematic “Hotel Green, © The Dennis Hopper Trust Courtesy of The Dennis Hopper Trust suggested that the role of Frank Booth in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Entrance” hung in his house in 1997 next to Warhol’s Pop portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Mao, and with which Hopper made his comeback as an actor in 1986, was actually Hopper let there be no doubt as to which artist he revered. “And Duchamp was not even the first merely a reflection of Hopper’s own life in the 1970s, “a disgusting person I encountered who achieved the necessary mixture of art and the everyday. Rilke called for phallic monster of the American unconsciousness”. it in his “Letters to a Young Poet”, and T.S. Eliot also points to this.” Then Hopper proceeded to quote from heart the Eliot verse, as if it were Shakespeare, something hardly any of his colleagues could The fact is that Hopper’s addiction made acting professionally very hard on him in the late 1970s do. Neither the Hollywood film stars nor the Manhattan art stars. Thanks to all his contradictions, and early 1980s, despite his appearances in the trance sequences in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Dennis Hopper was unique – the last of the rebels. as Ripley in Wim Wender’s The American Friend. In 1983, in Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumblefish he played the part of a drunk, speechless father, the archetypal failure – and immediately thereafter returned to art, his consolation and his therapy. He recently turned the film recording of a Heinz Peter Schwerfel is born in 1954 Cologne, Germany. He is the founder of Artcore Film in 1985. He is a journalist and filmmaker, founder and director of the artists’ film festival KunstFilmBiennale (until symbolic performance of that time into an oppressive installation of photos and film projection: On 2010). The retrospectives of his films have been shown, among others, in Paris (Centre Pompidou), New the opening day of his first major exhibition in 12 years he surrounded himself on the sand of the York (MoMA), Mexico City (Cinemateca), Helsinki (Ateneum) and Buenos Aires (Malba). He lives in Paris and Cologne. rodeo stadium in Houston with a circle of sticks of dynamite. “Then I blew myself up”. “Shot on the Run”, as the title of the dangerous performance read, was for Hopper a self-purgation, a rebirth, a Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. His paintings and photography new beginning. That evening he opened his exhibition. And then went into detox rehab. have been exhibited all over the world, including the recent retrospective, “Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood” in Paris. Dennis Hopper passed away May 29, 2010 in Venice, CA. Hopper always spoke very openly about his excesses. He was just as critical when considering the first paintings he produced after detoxification: colorful, gestural abstract pieces that bring much to mind, little of it Hopper. He commented tersely that it simply took him a long time to find his way back to painting. As a consequence, in his latter period he produced little, was highly selective of what he approved, and did not leave paintings hanging on their own. He ceased to publish portrait photos. And that, too, was Hopper: There was method to his madness, to the point of adamant refusal, quite a rarity in the art world today. What he felt was successful he then refused to repeat, considering this unnecessary, and instead sought new challenges.

After the box-office success of Colors (1988) in 1991 he shot Backtrack, which premiered in movie theaters under the name Catchfire – about an artist, played by Jodie Foster, whose works are Jenny Holzer’s strips of words. Hopper plays the killer who falls in love first with art and then the artist. It is a great symbol for someone who took over 30 years to combine art and cinema without losing sight of reality. His film output suffered as a consequence, and his last films from the 1990s

RES are ever more superficial and pleasant – but his art was not. Hopper granted himself trips down

NOVEMBER 2010 memory lane, used scenes such as the legendary graveyard-trip in Easy Rider for a piece called Cemetery that he processed on a computer. Or he exhibited his series of images of the assassination 130 © Dirimart, 2010 CONTENTS COVER (detail) Franz Ackermann, Volcano, 2010 © Studio Franz Ackermann INTERVIEW WITH FRANZ ACKERMANN PELİN DERVİŞ Courtesy of Galeria Fortes Vilaça HRAIR SARKISSIAN ON CONSTRUCTION & CHURCHES NOVEMBER PAYNTER Photo Credit: Reni Hansen & Jens Ziehe CONVERSATION WITH HAMLET HOVSEPIAN HANS ULRICH OBRIST ARCHITECTURE AND LIGHTS IN AN URBAN CONTEXT MARC GLOEDE SUN CINEMA CLEMENS VON WEDEMEYER INTERVIEW WITH SAM KELLER JANINE SCHMUTZ INTERVIEW WITH AMANDA SHARP BURCU YÜKSEL FAKED? AN INTERVIEW WITH TIM NEUGER DAVID ULRICHS JAKE & DINOS CHAPMAN ON THE SUBJECT OF “HELL” NICK HACKWORTH REDRESSING BERLIN’S REALITY PRINCIPLE H.G. MASTERS HELKE BAYRLE. INFINITE CONVERGENCE AND THE DOUBLE PERSPECTIVE GRIT WEBER DENNIS HOPPER–THE LAST OF THE REBELS HEINZ PETER SCHWERFEL

RES Art World / World Art

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