EXIT
Lectores y lecturas Readers and Readings Candida Höfer Abelardo Morell Anne Zahalka Nazif Topçuoglu Tomoko Yoneda Joan Fontcuberta Chema Madoz Gary Hill André Kertesz Iwan Baan Caio Reisewitz Ignasi Aballí TEXTOS / ESSAYS: Rosa Regás Ivan de la Nuéz Bianca Visser
Gary Hill. Remarks on Color, 1994. Single-channel video/sound installation Courtesy of the artist and Donald Young Gallery, Chicago
Lectores y lecturas Readers and Readings
Gary Hill. I Believe It Is an Image in Light of the Other, 1991-1992. Mixed media installation. Courtesy of the artist and Donald Young Gallery, Chicago.
Literatura y vida en la lectura Rosa Regás Nada es más fácil que poner de manifiesto las ventajas de la lectura sobre la ausencia de lectura, la benéfica influencia que tiene sobre todos nosotros, y sobre todo, el placer que nos proporciona. Leer es ante todo un ejercicio de la mente que la mueve, la revoluciona y la desarrolla, siempre produciendo esa inquietud que asoma cuando nos acercamos a otras voces y otros ámbitos, en una palabra, cuando accedemos a otros mundos distintos del que nos envuelve y nos protege. Leer, bien lo sabemos, acelera el ritmo de nuestra inteligencia, la fortalece y la enriquece, del mismo modo que caminar fortalece los músculos de las piernas y nos hace más ágiles. Pero además, esa misma inteligencia va adquiriendo con la lectura tal confianza en sí misma que, al poner a debatir su propio parecer con los pareceres múltiples que le ofrece la lectura, adquiere su propio criterio frente a todos los acontecimientos que la vida nos ofrece. Es en buena parte gracias a la lectura que la inteligencia deja de ser susceptible de ser manipulada, al menos en gran parte, y comienza y afianza su propio camino hacia la libertad. Además, la lectura nos convierte en creadores. El texto que leemos pasa inevitablemente por nuestra experiencia, nuestra imaginación y nuestra fantasía, gracias a las cuales somos capaces de interpretarlo y de hacerlo nuestro, de tal modo que el resultado de la novela, del relato o incluso del ensayo que hemos recibido lo recreamos en función de nuestra propia interpretación. Es ahí donde reside la grandeza de la creación: todo el que bebe de ella no sólo participa de la creación del autor sino que a partir de ella crea su propia historia.
Un maravilloso libro como Don Quijote de la Mancha, por ejemplo nos da múltiples pruebas de ello. A lo largo de estos cuatro siglos cientos de artistas han bebido de su historia para crear a su vez otros mundos de ficción en los que habrán volcado su interpretación de los personajes y de los paisajes y de los conflictos, para lo cual habrán utilizado los elementos que constituyen su propia personalidad, su biografía: la memoria, la experiencia, la forma de entender el mundo y los miedos, angustias y ternuras de su propia historia. Músicos, pintores, escultores, cineastas, místicos, poetas, filósofos, investigadores. Cada cual con su propio Quijote a cuestas, como si en la visión que contiene la de todos y cada uno de nosotros estuviera la verdad total y definitiva de El Quijote. Pero volvamos a la lectura: sumergirse en la lectura, sea de ficción o de opinión o de investigación, proporciona uno de los grandes placeres para los que, todo parece indicar, hemos venido al mundo, ya que para ello disponemos de las herramientas necesarias. Cierto es que esas herramientas hay que utilizarlas, de otro modo ni hay lectura ni hay placer. De ahí que la lectura siendo un placer, sea uno de los placeres activos que exigen nuestra colaboración, en contraposición con los placeres pasivos que nos ofrecen tantos ocios conocidos hoy, en los que, por decirlo así, casi no participan las facultades del alma y no tienen más exigencia que, es un decir, ese leve movimiento de la mano para ir cambiando de canal. Leer, ya lo sabemos, es viajar, es conocer otros mundos que viven como nosotros en el planeta, pero también es conocer otros ámbitos de pensamiento tan válidos co-
E X I T Nº 23-2006 24
Liliana Gelman Untitled from the series The Library, 2004-2006. Courtesy of the artist and PhotoArts, New York.
25
The library of water Iván de la Nuez
1
There is a piece by Abelardo Morell that exposes the fragility of writing and the book as transmitter of universal knowledge; the supposed eternity of the word. Water Alphabet is what it is called. Captured by his camera, that alphabet refers to written culture as something beautiful, of course; but at the same time something fragile and also ephemeral. The alphabet is about to disappear; it is a few seconds away from evaporating, from becoming oblivion. And, along with it, that world of long millennia comprised between A and Z seems to be vanishing. For those who acknowledge the crisis in writing in the face of what we currently call the “image age”, this photograph is an advantageous document. There are other photos by Abelardo Morell that run counter to this one: in them we observe some books that are still “alive”, yet in disrepair. As if they had been through a shipwreck. They are books with wounds; they have lost part of their content in the flood, but they remain among us. Those books experience the negation of that absurd and immemorial question: What book would you take with you to a desert island? Morell proposes something different: What books would survive, by themselves, after the sinking? Which ones will appear one day washed up on our beaches, coming, precisely, from some overpopulated islands where our epoch does not even guarantee solitude? Since our culture increasingly ceases to behave like a culture of life in order to become a culture of survival, those round trip journeys take on the semblance of an odyssey. They project the fleetingness of the book whereas it used to be
E X I T Nº 23-2006 56
considered eternal, its fragility whereas we used to take its strength for granted.
2
Of Abelardo Morell, we know he was born in Havana (1948), into a family of Spanish roots. We know he emigrated to the United States as a result of the invasion of the Bay of Pigs and the socialist proclamation of the Cuban revolution. Once in his new country, we learn that he studied Comparative Religion at Bowdin. And that his curiosity led him to present a jazz program, exaggeratedly playing John Coltrane, whose music, and that of John Cage, sparked in him an avidness for the spiritual sense of images. Abelardo Morell is also a committed professor in Massachusetts. Cartier-Bresson, De Chirico, Hitchcock, Diane Arbus and Minor White likewise inform this work that Joan Fontcuberta has admired as “out of the ordinary” photography. Charles Simic has catalogued his as a “poetics of apparitions”. Richard B. Woodward identifies his light bulb or camera obscura experiments as “almost mythical” moments in North American photography. Nicholson Baker has noted his relationship with books and the magic sense with which we are presented in his photographs of them. All this makes Abelardo Morell a North American artist for all bureaucratic curricular purposes. That does not preclude the occasional –perhaps when the snow piles upappearance of what he himself calls his “Cuban self”. Then, he makes photos of his family’s condition as refugees upon their arrival in the United States, he agrees to present a camera obscura piece –Empire State
Abelardo Morell. Old Travel Scrapbook, Munich, 2000. Courtesy of the artist.
57
Hong Hao. My Things No. 7: Knowledge is Power, 2004. Courtesy of Chambers Fine Art, New York.
Lectores
Readers
Parece como si estas fotografías hubieran sido tomadas del álbum de una niña de otra época. Éstas la muestran con sus amigas. Podemos apreciar que tienen buenos modales, que son chicas de buena familia y que se educan en las mejores escuelas. Son las últimas de su especie, una motivo de orgullo y alegría para sus padres. Esta niñas se apoyan entre sí, son fuertes y están bien informadas. Uno estaría tentado de preguntarles cómo se siente al ser féminas en su entorno, porque parecen lo suficientemente libres e independientes como para poner nervioso al varón tradicional. Estas niñas están seguras de sí mismas y de su aprendizaje; y, por tanto, en lugar de coquetear y excitar a los hombres, es más probable que logren hacerles perder los nervios al recordarles sus propias inseguridades. Cuando pienso en mi niñez, recuerdo hogares repletos de libros; bibliotecas. Siempre tuve una relación íntima con los libros y, a diferencia de la mayoría de los hombres, no soy de la opinión que las mujeres que leen sean peligrosas. Cuando la gente observa mis fotografías de estas jóvenes, ocasionalmente evocan a “Lolita” y la sexualidad, incluso cuando el escritor turco internacionalmente reconocido Orhan Pamuk, afirma que la sexualidad no era el mensaje principal, sino la nostalgia por la niñez.* A lectores que sean lo suficientemente maduros, podrían también recordarles a Maurice Chevalier, quien con su simpático acento francés cantaba “Thank Heaven for little girls” en la película Gigi con Leslie Caron. O aquellos con una inclinación más siniestra recordarán Muerte en Venecia a través de Thomas Mann o Visconti; ambos casos son ejemplos extremos de la culminación del deseo casi fetichista por la juventud y la inocencia. Estas imágenes tienden hacia la confrontación con el tiempo, la memoria y la pérdida. Se podría decir que, para poder soportar la fugacidad de la vida, estoy intentando recrear unas imágenes difusas de un pasado que idealizado. No sé si es más difícil recordar los días que ya han pasado (y si acaso merece la pena) que reconstruir un pasado ideal. Nabokov y el problema de la memoria, filtrado a través de la prosa crítica de Pamuk, se revela a sí mismo como una sensibilidad obsesivamente proustiana a la que prefiero creer que me encuentro más próximo.
These photographs look as though they were taken from the scrap book of a young girl from long ago. They show her with her friends. We notice that these are well-mannered, proper girls, who come from wellto-do families and who are educated in the best schools. They are the last of their species, a source of pride and joy for their parents. These girls are supportive of each other, they are strong and wellinformed. One would be inclined to ask them what being a female in their society feels like, because they seem free and independent enough to make many a traditional male nervous. These girls are sure of themselves and of their learning; and therefore, instead of titillating and arousing men, it is more likely that they would make them lose their nerve by reminding them of their own inadequacies. When I think of my childhood, I remember homes full of books; libraries. I have always had an intimate relationship with books and unlike most men, I do not think that reading women are dangerous. When people look at my photographs of these young girls, sometimes vague allusions to “Lolita” and sexuality come up, even though the internationally renowned Turkish author, Orhan Pamuk, claims that, for Nabokov the main issue is not sexuality, but the yearning for childhood*. Readers who are old enough may also be reminded of Maurice Chevalier, in his amusing French accent, singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” in the movie Gigi with Leslie Caron. Or, those who have a darker disposition, will think of Death in Venice, via Thomas Mann or Visconti; in both cases, as extreme examples of the culmination of one almost fetishistic desire for youth and innocence. These photographs tend towards a confrontation with time, memory and loss. One might say that, in order to cope with the transience of life, I am trying to recreate the unclear images of a past which I idealize. I don’t know whether it is harder to recall the actual days gone by, (or whether it is worth to do so at all, for that matter), than to re-construct an idealized past. Nabokov and the problem of memory, filtered through Pamuk’s critical prose, reveals itself in an obsessively Proustian sensibility towards which I prefer to think that I am closer.
Nazif Topçuoglu
Nazif Topçuoglu
*Radikal Kitap, Estambul, 10/05/02 (periódico turco, suplemento literario)
*Radikal Kitap, Istanbul, 10/05/02 (Turkish newspaper, Books supple-
TRADUCCIÓN: JACINTO PICÓ
E X I T Nº 23-2006 96
ment)
Nazif Topçuoglu. Cain and Abel, 2003. Courtesy of the artist and Flatland Gallery, Utrecht.
97
Candida Höfer. BNF Paris, 1998. Courtesy of the artist and Galería Fúcares, Madrid.
E X I T Nº 23-2006 130
Candida Höfer. Deichmanske Bibliotek Oslo III, 2000. Courtesy of the artist and Galería Fúcares, Madrid.
131
E X I T Nยบ 23-2006 150
Martha Rosler / e-flux. Martha Rosler Library, 2005. Courtesy of e-flux. Photo: Carlos Motta
151
Index of Artists
Ignasi Aballi. Barcelona (Spain), 1958. The passage of time is one of the most recurrent themes in Aballí’s photography. Considering this to be the unfolding of events from memory to the present, both extremes take shape in series in which time is the absolute protagonist. This is what happens in Un any (2004), Calendarios (2003) and Errores (2002), where the artist portrays and records important events occurring at a certain time, whereby we can perceive another one of the most characteristic aspects of his work, that is, his interest in storage, collection and archive, ultimately leading him to photograph libraries (Biblioteca, 2000-2004) and shelves full of books sometimes softened by a plastic covering with which he manages to bestow the image with a pervading pictorial veneer, another of the plastic features of his photography. Noteworthy among his latest solo shows are Nada para ver, Museo Bellas Artes, Santander, 2004; the Museo de Arte de Serralves, Porto and Museu d’Arte Contemporani, Barcelona, in 2006. He is represented by the galleries Elba Benítez of Madrid and Estrany de la Mota in Barcelona Eija-Liisa Ahtila. Hameenlinna (Finland), 1959. Educated in Law, Ahtila combined her career as a lawyer with artistic studies at institutions such as the London College of Printing, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the American Film Institute. Her most well-known works are her videos and photographs, though she has also developed an important set of works in the realm of performance. Her early works address aspects such as the philosophy of art, institutional criticism and feminism, as well as questions involving the construction of image, language, space and narrative. Over time this interest has given rise to works that have taken the shape of fully-fledged dramatic structures, based on her own experiences or on the stories of others. In 2006, she received the Artes Mundi Prize. Her solo shows include: Neue National Galerie, Berlin, 2000; Museum of Art, Dallas and De Appel, Amsterdam, both in 2003; Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporánea, Bolzano, 2003; and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, 2006. She is represented by Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. Eugenio Ampudia. Melgar, Valladolid (Spain), 1959. Known for the actions and productions he has been carrying out since the late 1980s, he has also worked as a free-lance curator and teacher. His work
E X I T Nº 23-2006 164
involves media ranging from video and installation to photography and net.art, and reflects critically on the mechanisms underlying art structures and the very process of the artist as creator and disseminator of ideas. His most outstanding solo shows include: Sala Westwerk, Hamburg, 1988; Gal. Rafael Ortiz, Seville, 1992 and 2001; La Fábrica, Madrid, 1999; Gal. Max Estrella, Madrid; Centro Cultural Parque España, Rosario; and Espai 4, Casal Solleric, Mallorca, all in 2003. ARTIUM, Vitoria, is preparing a retrospective show on his work to be shown in October, 2006. Web: www.operariodeideas.com. Iwan Baan. Holland,1975. Baan Studied photography at the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague, before embarking on his career as a freelance photographer, working between New York, Amsterdam and Beijing. One of his more recent commissions was as the official photographer to the Mongolian president during George Bush’s visit to the country in 2005. As well as collaborating with various publishing houses, he has also worked for the architect Rem Koolhaas. On the occasion of the exhibition Books grow out of the ground here, held at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, with Candida Höfer and Bert Nienhuis in 2004, Baan produced an interactive project of 360-degree, three dimensional photographs of the interior of six Dutch libraries. These can be seen at http://www.iwan.com/libraries. Edith Derdyk, Sao Paulo, (Brazil) 1955. All the pieces created by this internationally acclaimed Brazilian artist arise from the world of drawing. After having drawn for many years, she began to make incisions in the paper and thus endow it with a much more organic content, which has led her to explore installation. Having escaped from drawing, line then began to attain its own autonomy, becoming line beams migrating toward space, whether to join walls, or to escape from the limits of a book, one of the objects most frequently used in her work. This usage of books has currently led her to employ the photographic medium as a means of expression and to thus capture the fleetingness of those lines rendered in space and on paper like spider webs. Most noteworthy among her latest solo shows are: Paço das Artes, Sao Paulo, 2005; Gallery Marilia Razuk, Sao Paulo, 2005; Chaim Hanin Fine Arts Gallery, New York, 2003. She is represented by the gallery Marilia Razul of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Eugenio Ampudia. En juego, 2006. Videoproyección. Cortesía de Galería Max Estrella, Madrid.
EXIT
Brian McKee. Castle, Afghanistan #9, 2002 Courtesy Galerie Ernst Hilger, Wien
NOVIEMBRE / DICIEMBRE / ENERO # 2006-2007 NOVEMBER / DECEMBER / JANUARY # 2006-2007