Open LetI am ters Writin Art ing CritiTo‌ cism Node Center Notebooks
Ed. An Paenhuysen
A collection of exercises from the online course Creative Forms of Art Criticism and Writing.
Vol.2
4 6 10 14 18 20 24 28 32 36 38 42 46
Introduction by An Paenhuysen Hanako Fujii to Chris Kraus Mercedes Carriquiry to Sophie Calle Alex Bowron to Jon Annette Abel to Harald Szeemann Claudio Cravero to Rirkrit Tiravanija Flavia Dalla Bernardina to Marina Abramović Marina Kassianidou to Francis Alÿs (in Four Parts) Maeve Hanna to curator Marnie Fleming, Oakville Galleries (Canada) Annalisa Pellino to the non-participants of the Forum of Italian Contemporary Art Sarah Mercadante to Nadia Sujin Jung to Fatih Akin Voices
An Paenhuysen
Introduction
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Open letters are a genre that art critics rarely use. If they ever did so, these letters did’t seem to go viral. It’s different with artists’ letter writing. There are several famous ones: Adrian Piper critiquing art critic Donald Kuspit, Yvonne Rainer opposing museum director Jeffrey Deitch, Danh Vō fighting with his collector Bert Kreuk. Mostly, these open letters are written with emotion. The emotion tends often to be negative, coming from a place of anger. Open letters are a great way for releasing that anger, protesting against injustice or denouncing malpractice with the knowledge that also a wider audience will be informed. Instead, the positive thank-you letter seems to be a rather private matter.
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
“Sincere” and “authentic” might sound cheesy, but they define the spirit behind I Am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism. These letters were written by worldwide based art critics during the online course “Creative Forms in Art Writing” at Node Center – Curatorial Studies Online. It is suprising, but all the letters ended up being positive, and this is not because negative thoughts were censured. Yet, don’t we all know that expressing gratitude is not an easy thing to do privately, and does it get any easier when your praise goes public?
An Paenhuysen
Like the private letter, the language of the open letter not only allows feelings, but it is also highly personal. Both feelings and the personal might be the reasons why art critics avoid the genre of open letter writing. Many art critics embrace the impersonal and the objective, sometimes even to the point of avoiding a clear, singular positioning.
Hanako Fujii to Chris Kraus
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Auckland, New Zealand Saturday, September 5, 2015 08:21am
Hanako Fujii
Dear Chris, Catt, and Sylvie, In beginning this open letter I immediately think back to two days prior. A funeral — a moment of excess fresh in my mind. I broke away from the feeling of grief once my best friend took to the podium. She was to make a formal dedication to her late father. It’s strange because it’s a tired format, a ritual, but unavoidably personal and expectedly devastating. Though the display was of more strength than sadness. Her conviction and intellect was a lasting impression of her father’s influence. It was an embodied thank you. It seems then that it’s difficult to talk about someone’s lasting impression without effectively embodying the result of their influence. I would hope that this open letter is then both a self-conscious and subconscious display of the way I think, after having read your writing. Admittedly, I am unsure as to whether I am addressing you as Chris Kraus the author, or as the “Chris Kraus” within the characters of Chris, Catt and Sylvie. I am content with this ambiguity. I’m also not sure if this is an attempt to imitate your writing. I suppose it is indeed. Thinking in a roundabout, contradictory way comes
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
easily. It’s because what I have read of yours allows me to. Combining fiction with nonfiction, while inserting art criticism with feminist connotations is honest and candid and makes me want to evoke something similar. It’s audacious and I want to be audacious.
I never realized the extent to which my thoughts are influenced by place. Or influenced by a lack of place or too many places. It’s the contradiction of becoming insular. I think this idea recurs throughout your novels — the prominence of long-distance driving back and forth. It’s relevant as I am about to leave New Zealand for some time and I am not sure if that means I will be a migrant again, or an expat. I am resolutely useless in either category.
Hanako Fujii
Aliens and Anorexia was the first book. I think it’s one that I will always go back to. I’m very glad to have read that first because it is set in New Zealand and I am obsessed with place. I also understand you went to Victoria University in Wellington. I only almost went there. I wonder if you would consider yourself a New Zealander. I’m very interested in this sort of expat, migrant, dislocated life. I like to think that your idea of Lonely Girl Phenomenology is related to this somehow. The Lonely Girl as the physically and metaphorically dislocated self. It could be the most un-lonely way of thinking.
Hanako Fujii
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You said there was a lot of madness here because it is a “mean and isolated little country”. To others it still carries the idea of the Godzone. I feel and know both notions, it’s a living contradiction. I’ve suddenly carried around with me a recurring feeling of nausea. Counting down the days before my departure and the effect is physical, the nausea is coming from the middle of my spine. Or maybe it’s the pull of the Super Moon. Sometimes I find myself thinking that I am leaving to come back. My assumption is that your novels are about you, only in the sense that you use yourself to talk about something bigger than yourself. I would want to imitate your writing in that regard. A selfless selfishness. I especially like when you talk about physical and metaphorical entrapment, as I connect it to identity politics and the capitalist society we live in. Entrapment. It’s the institution inside of us.
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
In mentioning my friend’s dedication to her father, it’s probably clear that I think ideas are best shown through correspondence. When there is a dialogue to create a sort of instinctual ‘affect’. It makes me think of the lengthy emails exchanged between myself and a friend from high school after she moved to Los Angeles. We use these emails to talk to each other, and I think ultimately it helps us to talk to ourselves. I saw this resonate through the letters Chris wrote in I Love Dick, as she was writing to herself and to everyone like her. None of it was really about Dick. It never is. Hanako
Hanako Fujii
I often think that making a film about Aliens and Anorexia would be my next project. Maybe not an adaption, but it would be in conversation with your work. Lonely Girl Phenomenology can be a hypothetical thesis. It can start here. A thesis as an embodied performance, an ambitious attempt to un-bludgeon my subjectivity.
Mercedes Carriquiry to Sophie Calle
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Mercedes Carriquiry
September 10, 2015 - 23:56 Montevideo, Uruguay Salut Sophie, I’m caught by your work. Don’t get cocky and stop reading; I haven’t been snooping around for long. I actually met you (if I can say so) in Colombia three years ago. I saw your exhibition douleur exquise in Bogotá. I’m not sure if seen is the right verb, I suffered it. How could you? I never though I could experiment grief ever (I’m way beyond insensitive), even less that I could own somebody else’s angoisse.
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
I am not particularly a big fan of your art in terms of aesthetics but the mixture of your photographs and writing… the moment I start reading, bang I’m gone. That’s probably what Auster talks about in Leviatan, the ambiguity of what you do and the difficulty of classifying as photographer/artist/writer is kind of thrilling too.
Mercedes Carriquiry
Maybe the fact that you used your writing, your photographs, your art and mise en scene, made it so soul stirring. I’m not sure, it does still not sound enough. The repeated boards really created the sensation of time, and made it very Oulipo style (personal stamp yeah..). If ever somebody would ask me how does it feel to agonizingly forget I will know what to say.
Mercedes Carriquiry
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I won’t flatter your work all night long; there is still a lot to be read for somebody who is very, very, new at this art-thing. Just letting you know that the fact you could transmit “Mallarmé’s angoisse” in an exhibition was for me not only inspiring but also hopeful. It definitely encouraged me to find the way to transmit what’s going on up there. I took the rest of the day off that day, I couldn’t keep visiting. It sucked the tears out of me (not a big deal, art is the only thing that has made me cry so far). If I ever reach that level of power and openness in an exhibition I will not only write back, but will also owe it to your inspiration. Partially.
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
Mercedes Carriquiry
Best, Mercedes
Alex Bowron to Jon
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April 25, 2015
Alex Bowron
Dearest Jon,
About eight years ago I left a Sunday mo drawing session because I needed to ste had been struggling that day to get my frustration hit me hard. From a fountain only true epiphany: I cared more about p 2-minute sketch then I did about anythi up until that point. I knew then that I ne understood how to get it, there was no t
One of the most important skills I have l how to curb my empathy just enough so in the “real world�. Despite the hardship devote my life to seeking, making, think art because it not only tolerates but enc imagination. Art recognizes that imagin
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
learned since then is o that I can function ps of a tricky income, I king and writing about courages and rewards my nation is a skill.
Alex Bowron
orning drop-in life ep outside and cry. I lines just right and my n of tears sprung my life’s producing a competent ing else I had done eeded art, and once I turning back.
Alex Bowron
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What I want you to gather from all of th the game because of artists like you. I am requires imagination and forces me to le work takes the stuff of this world and ha fully recognizable but entirely new ways dogmatic lack of commitment to any on you are able to acknowledge the endless (ideas, people, locations). You possess th and reconfigure in ways that achieve the with the least amount of intervention. I building a life that requires you to funct trades (researcher, explorer, laborer, en project manager) and a Jack of none.
Only you can so effectively represent th by the limitations of ones own makeup t gyrations of a tubular air dancing “fly gu Thank you for that. Alex
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he tragedy of being bound through the erratic uy�.
Alex Bowron
his is that I stay in m driven by art that earn new things. Your ands it back to us in s. You possess an almost ne medium. In making, s details of your materials he skills to disassemble e most amount of change respect your devotion to tion as a master of many ngineer, administrator,
Annette Abel to Harald Szeemann
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Annette Abel
Dear Harald, — or Harry as you have always signed your letters — it’s been ten years now that you have died and quite often I am asking myself what I have done on this day in February 2005. But no matter how hard I try I can’t remember. Isn't it weird that sometimes only retrospectively we understand the significance of events? Isn’t it almost like history has the tendency to be constructed retrospectively rather than in the present? Although I can’t precisely remember what I've done on the day of your death, I can still remember that around the same time I became aware of my obsession for art and decided — to the disappointment of my parents — to give up my studies in literature. At this point in my life verbs like “curating”, nouns like “curator” or definitions like “artist-curators” were hardly on my mind. Nowadays, these words and ideas rule my mind… During the last six years of my life, your work and your theoretical bequeathal has turned into the main ally of my thoughts and ideas. Many of your ideas have accompanied my daily walks, they brought me to the verge of despair while interpreting them, I’ve metaphorically danced with them, I’ve criticized them,
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
You once said it is better to have just a few visitors that are willing to truly see and feel the artwork instead of a 10000 exhibition visitors who do not truly care. What happened to the purpose of art to comfort the disturbance and disturb the comfort? Harry, I am very well aware of the fact that you won't answer my questions and that the only thing that seems left for me now is to go once more on a long walk by myself and talk to you in a thousand silent voices. Annette
Annette Abel
I’ve tried to fight against them, I’ve been obsessed by them, I’ve tried to banish them… and although I've turned and twisted them, they became fundamental parts of my very existence and carried me through life. I think you would be quite surprised how fundamentally things have changed the last decades in the art system. Although you had been fundamentally important for the definition of the profession of a freelance curator, I question that you would favor all the ongoing developments. Instead of a clearly defined profession, curatorship has become a new fashionable career perspective along the lines of "I Curate, You Curate, We Curate". Curatorial programs at universities, curators as artists, artists as curators, biennales, everything aestheticized, everyone can do everything but only a few seem to be able to do things properly.
Claudio Cravero
Claudio Cravero to Rirkrit Tiravanija
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Re: From relational art to utopian art Dear Rirkrit, We were introduced to one another on the occasion of your trip across UAE with Philippe Parreno and Anri Sala. Actually, we didn’t talk exactly in person there, but, nevertheless, I was so much seduced by our silence in that conversation that I feel such a level of propinquity with you, so I can call you friendly “dear.” In fact, this silent likemindedness pushes me to get in touch with you to involve you in one of my biggest dreams. And if it is true that greatness is usually accompanied by audacity, I dare to ask you as follows:
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
With all that in mind, I was also reflecting on the word “Utopia.” It originally stems from ancient Greek and stands for a nonplace, both ideal and unattainable. This image is something that recurs frequently when we think about Eden, paradise, or whichever garden with luxuriant greenery. However, it is a matter of fact that a garden exudes sensuality in every corner with its vegetal extracts. Exactly the way you did by planting tea seeds, aromatic plants and a thousand of roses. In the end, the roots of
Claudio Cravero
So, to keep it short, let me just say I was not only amazed, but exponentially bewildered and fascinated while walking through your Jardin des syncrétismes in Sharjah. Therefore, I dream to import and adapt your magical and lustful garden on the borderline that separates Saudi Arabia from Bahrain. As you probably know, discontents between the two Kingdoms occur on a daily basis, and religious restrictions avoid people’s leisure in public spaces.
Claudio Cravero
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eroticism are basically love, aren’t they? Do you know how great your seeds of love are in terms of allowing people’s benevolence to flourish? I know your concept within this artwork was no longer relational, it was rather based on a meditative status. And we are aware that the more we meditate listening to the present, the less frightened by the future we become. Beyond any kind of differences and overshadowing conflicts. Since as a dreamer I am convinced that dreams can come true, I am thinking that visionary non-places can become real and not only ideal. From your lesson on relational art we have learnt that the strength of contemporary art resides in the power to transform the goals into means. If you think about your interventions and performances, you and Philippe have always wished to reach an authentic relationship with the public attending your “dinners.” But the same relationship, which was meant as an end of your process, became the means to reach. Wasn’t that amazing?
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
Claudio Cravero
Let’s think about it, and feel free to ask me any further questions after perusing my attachment. I look forward to receiving from you and sharing dreams. All my best utopias, Claudio
Flavia Dalla Bernardina to Marina Abramović
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Dear Marina,
Flavia Dalla Bernardina
I’ve always wanted to stare at yo you once did — I don’t remembe
I’d like to talk to you unpretenti or not, but it would be nice to ha could laugh a bit or say things w us or at least break the ice (for m camouflages to let go, but I still
I imagine that I will be all excite things that I didn’t read, experie silence, with those profound eye very gently in a generous way. S want to, although you believe in perform life: you live so much, y have room for words. It’s all in y erase. Your life and your perform your own life, performing a cons
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
ou in silence like in that performance er when or where.
ed talking about things I don’t know, ences I did not have. While you’ll be in es of yours, saying one or two things Sometimes you’ll say things you don’t n them. This is what happens when you you experience so much that you don’t your body like tattoos you can’t never mances are one. Or you are a shadow of stant performer role.
Flavia Dalla Bernardina
iously. I’m not sure whether you drink ave a bottle of wine, so maybe we we don’t mean to. That might connect me). Maybe you won’t need any kind of do.
Flavia Dalla Bernardina
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Of course I am creating our conv The you that I want to talk with, wrong with that, considering it’s meet. Unless we walk through th the middle of it. Once we reach t each other with an old eye of rec smile without showing our teeth yet, but I’ll think about it. And th path, lonely as everyone else’s li can happen. Being shadows, per
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
Flavia
Flavia Dalla Bernardina
versation, I am creating you right now. , I want to learn from. There’s nothing s practically impossible for us to really he Walls of China and meet right in this absurd point we would stare at cognition and empathy. Then we would h. We might hug or not, I’m not sure hen we would walk back to our own ife, but with one conviction: anything rformers or dreamers.
Marina Kassianidou to Francis Alÿs (in Four Parts)
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September 06, 2015 Dear Mr Alÿs,
Marina Kassianidou
Two days ago, I saw your work, The Silence of Ani (2015), at the Istanbul Biennial and I wanted to share that experience with you. None of my friends and colleagues have seen the work, which makes it difficult to talk about it with them. And even if they had seen it, you would still be the best person to talk to, about how my encounter with the work unfolded: The Silence
The space was quiet. The film had ended and was about to restart. The benches were full and people were standing along the walls, whispering. I found some space near a corner. The whispers faded as a nearly mute landscape of ruins, with wind gushing through the wild vegetation and stray rocks, appeared on the screen. I stood on my toes, peering between people’s heads and shoulders and swaying left and right. (Before continuing, I should mention that, in general, I have little patience for videos and films in an art exhibition, let alone a biennale. I especially dislike long videos that follow a set story with a beginning, middle, and end. I find their attempts to control my time rather frustrating. As an artist working with drawing and collage, I have a different relationship to time. I
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The Birds
A few moments into the film, bird sounds are heard, softening the muteness of the ruins and the harshness of the wind. The person standing in front of me — a very tall man by my standards — moved, blocking my view. I tilted to the right to regain access to the landscape. A nearby woman glared at me and I nearly tumbled over. As the bird sounds grew louder, I realized that I hadn’t turned off my cell phone. Then I remembered that it wasn’t working. Since arriving in Istanbul, I had no signal. Nobody could call me.
Marina Kassianidou
can devote hours looking at a drawing if I choose so; in fact, before seeing your work I had just spent fifty minutes with a drawing by another artist. Videos, however, seem to make that choice for me — I have to see them from beginning to end. That makes me uneasy. Call it juvenile if you must but there it is. The experience becomes even more frustrating when I don’t know how long a video is. I usually watch it for a few minutes and then wander away, without ever knowing at which point in the story I entered and at which point I left. It was, thus, a bit disappointing to walk into the space and to discover that your work was mainly a video with a story and an unidentified duration. I started watching, not sure how long I would be able to stay — I had to get to Istanbul Modern in half an hour for a talk by another artist.)
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Marina Kassianidou
The Performers
The Silence
Gradually the performers revealed themselves: several teenagers holding strange-looking instruments, hiding in the plants surrounding the ruins, making bird sounds with their instruments, running, crouching, listening, making more sounds. The sounds crescendo and combine into almost-music, a concert of fabricated birdcalls, wind, and moving human bodies. All these merge, becoming something else. The performers stop being imitators of bird sounds and begin becoming-birds; the wind and birdcalls are becoming-music; the landscape is becoming-alive; everything is becoming-landscape. I have to say — and it is rather embarrassing — that it was moving. Not in a sentimental way but moving in that something somehow moved — in the video, in the sound, in the landscape, in the performers, in the space, in me. As the film proceeds, the sounds diminuendo. In attempting to reach out to something other — the non-existent birds, the landscape, the past — the performers become tired and fall asleep amidst the ruins. Returning to silence felt odd. It was technically the same silence we began with — the landscape, the ruins, and the wind. Nobody in the audience moved or whispered. The man in front of me and the woman nearby seemed hypnotized. I had
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somehow found a perfect balance and was no longer swaying, even though I was still standing on my toes. Delicate silence and stillness. We were almost in a different place. When the film ended, someone was clapping. I moved quickly towards a bench and sat down. The film started again.
Marina Kassianidou
I wanted to ask, did the performers actually sleep or were they pretending? Not that it matters. To become exhausted in an attempt to achieve the impossible — to lure birds back to a ruined place —  is an absurd and admirable pursuit indeed, whether it occurred or not. Another question: Were the performers different when they woke up? I imagine they would be.
Before I end, I have the following request: If you ever use the bird instruments for another piece and need performers, can you please let me know? I cannot read music sheets and I am completely tone deaf. Give me one of those instruments, however, and let me run in a field, and I am confident I could sing, eventually. With best wishes, Marina Kassianidou
Maeve Hanna to curator Marnie Fleming, Oakville Galleries (Canada)
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Maeve Hanna
Dear Marnie Fleming, I never saw it, your final show You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me, from the permanent collection. But for me, it really summarizes the strength that you had as a curator of contemporary art. On Oakville Galleries’ webpage I read: “On the occasion of my retirement, I am taking this opportunity to share some of the acquisitions that resonate most strongly for me. … — art that has moved me, challenged me and made me think in new and unexpected ways during my twenty-plus years here.” It is a sentence that says a lot about your curatorial practice: compassionately and gently caressing art into exhibitions so they sang to the visitor.
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You were two steps ahead at every turn, vigorously researching in your quiet office that overlooked Lake Ontario. When I climbed the stairs in the morning to go to my shared office I would peer into yours at the top of the stairs. There you would be at your desk, overlooking a beautiful bay window with a view of the Lake. You showed me a webcam you had set up outside that was taking stills
Maeve Hanna
Before moving out west, I did see your Freedom of Assembly. The title itself: quick, witty and clever. As I grow, I intend to keep a list of witty titles that I can return to: titling an exhibition is a challenge in itself.
Maeve Hanna
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of the lake for an art project. Every five seconds it would capture the character of the lake, ever changing, through time of day, seasons. Through sun, hail, snow and wind. I imagine that after 30 years with that view, from that window in particular, you will miss it. You were a Virginia Woolf with a room of your own and a view where you wrote, and you did so beautifully. Your exhibitions had moods, for the walls changed with each new install. Deep burgundy or gold. Sometimes shy grey and others, the deepest black. Then a glowing pink, like the happy cheeks of a newborn baby. Freedom of Assembly was a
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Thank you for sharing your knowledge, your curatorial vision. You have had a resonating impact on me. Maeve
Maeve Hanna
revelatory exhibition for me. It seemed so simple, but wasn’t. Is collage simple? You ran with it moving away from this stagnant idea of collage — paper and glue — and demonstrated all the different ways we can see it: sculpture, assemblage, paintings even. You looked at collage from, as Joni Mitchell might say, “both sides now” and more even, multiple angles, and in such innovative and compelling ways.
Annalisa Pellino to the non-participants of the Forum of Italian Contemporary Art
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Annalisa Pellino
Dear non-participants, Last weekend I went to the Forum of Italian Contemporary Art, the first meeting organized by the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato (Tuscany) that aimed to propose new strategies to revitalize the Italian art system.I t was a challenging three-days tour de force of forty roundtable discussions, with about ten speakers each and an indefinite number of attendants, most of them professionals. On the one hand, I was impressed by the fact that, contrary to my expectations, most of the speakers were younger than the average age of those who usually take part in that kind of conference in Italy. But on the other hand, I must say, I got a strange feeling in not meeting there many of you, I mean that large group of independent and young people we are part of: curators, art historian and critics, art bloggers and artists. This fact led me to the following line of thought: we belong to a generation aged between 30 and 40, which has to deal with a scenario made of a general and endemic — both in the institutional and independent field — job insecurity. That means a lack of a professional identity and recognition and, in other words, to be part of a cultural working-class without a working-class culture, which is definitely Italian in a certain way and quite hard to translate in other languages.
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Interesting, this issue about language and the embarrassment, the incompleteness present in every attempt of translation! It was the topic of a roundtable on the issue La lingua italiana proposed by the artist Cesare Pietroiusti, the most interesting talk in my opinion. It focused on the fact that in an English speaking art world the mother tongue is a competence we often have to give up, whereby we risk to loose not only the chance to speak — that is to express our personal voice in an incisive, poetic and emotional way — but also to think. What about our analytical thinking skills in absence of a mother tongue?
I would love to know your opinion! The podcast of each discussion should be available next week and I hope you will have the chance and the willingness to listen. So, let’s start to bring the debate in a wider and pluralistic roundtable in order to think of new proposals for a discussion panel in the forum’s second edition. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. Annalisa
Annalisa Pellino
The oddity is that I found the roundtable titled Revitalizing art criticism equally interesting and complementary to the first one, but unfortunately it was held concurrently. Which one would you choose to participate in? I simply decided to go back and forth between both, to mash up my notes while giving green light to free associations and thoughts. How to reinvent the language of art criticism in order to give it more strength and efficacy in communication?
Sarah Mercadante to Nadia
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Sarah Mercadante
Dear Nadia,
Today I write to you even if it’s a you. My intentions are good and the appropriate medium to expr an atypic, surprising and sparkli a declaration of my respect towa arts, your speech, and your frien met.
I am still startled by the simplici gallerist’s job. Last December, fo show as “a way to drink wine an you support.” I can’t imagine my really taken aback by the freshn
Despite your statement, the artw were tenderly displayed. It made connections between the artwor the traditional way of exhibition aesthetic proposal. As a young c
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ity of how you explain the or instance, you described your nd spend time with the artists y face when you said that! I was ness of your words.
works of the exhibition e clear to me that the rks on display went beyond n making — with a thematic or curator I force myself to have
Sarah Mercadante
a strange way for me to talk to d the letter format seems to be ress what I want to reveal to ing woman like you. Take it as ards your involvement in the ndly approach when we first
Sarah Mercadante
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a theoretical consistency in my s otherwise, the exhibition will be me that it could be much more t dare to try things no matter if so with your heart convinced that w better person. I share your visio
How is it possible to feel such a c encounters? Maybe two passion speaking together. By the way, w way of working, you told me tha made you create a gallery.
Our work will cross during the ne be by mail correspondence, in a g visit of our respective events — a Yours sincerely, Sarah
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connection with only three nate souls always end up when I explained to you my at it was the same mindset that
ext decades. I don’t care if it will gloomy café or during a fleeting as long as we stay in touch.
Sarah Mercadante
shows. It seems to me that e a huge mess. But you taught than following the “rules.” You omething limps. You carry on working in art makes you a on on that point.
Sujin Jung to Fatih Akin
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Sujin Jung
Dear Fatih Akin Today, I watched your film Soul Kitchen, which I always wanted to watch but, for some reason, I did not do so. My friend, who likes Japanese film, recommended it to me and the movie title made me think it would be a Japanese film. Talking about food (of course, it might eventually be talking about something through food) is a trend in Japanese film. Well, obviously not! It’s a German film! That was really interesting and funny to me, haha. However, what is more impressive than how silly I was, is the location of this film and the human relationships it displays. It makes me want to do an exhibition based on film! Watching your film, I cannot help thinking I would like to visit your Soul Kitchen and create a similar kind of place.
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
Probably, my thought expressed here above is inspired by nowadays’ Korean art scene. The fact that I watched this film right now is fortunate and great timing, haha. Because, nowadays, there are many places that are being remodelled and those places are used for exhibitions, cafés, etc. However, what I was thinking about is a little different: I would like to make an exhibition about those kind of places. It would be an exhibition for the “soul,” just like the chef’s dishes in your movie are for the “soul.” Aren’t you curious about this exhibition, which might be fantastic? I will give you a sneak peek just in case you are really really curious about this: Sujin Jung
“Hello, I am today’s tour guide! The exhibition is based on the film Soul Kitchen directed by Fatih Akin. Have you ever thought about an exhibition that is based on a film? In the film, the main character bought an old warehouse and remodelled it into a restaurant. So, we can see an old warehouse being changed into a restaurant where everyone can not only have dinner but also enjoy their time. This way it turns from being an abandoned place into a location where everyone want to hang out. We can see the human relationships inside this transformed place. This exhibition focuses on that moment in the film. It’s about places that change from being a factory, a motel in the past, to being used as an art museum. Plus, it deals with the relationships and events inside those places. Let’s move on to the first room. It’s most interesting that
Sujin Jung
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we are seeing the places inside the place. I mean, this art museum was also a warehouse before. However, recently it was remodelled and now it holds this exhibition! You can still see some traces. So, I can say that this show displays kind of art-works inside a kind of art-work! Oh, the must-do thing in this exhibition is actually the exhibit-related program, which is also a tour! You can visit those places in person. If you want to participate, make a reservation as soon as possible, because it’s really popular!… (To Be Continued)” How was the guided tour? I hope you enjoy this. Imagine that this exhibition happened for real. How awesome it would be. Hahaha. Oh, I almost forgot to say this, I have never seen this kind of lovely film before; thank you very much for making this film! Oh, let’s talk about other subjects in this film later, definitely! Best wishes, Sujin Jung
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I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
Sujin Jung
P.S. I wish I could send you a voice-file of my guided tour, haha!
Voices
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Hanako Fujii Hanako has the low, mumbling tones of New Zealand's Southern plains, complete with a sharp rolling “R” — not yet overtaken by the extended vowels of the North. Though the subtle singsong simplicity of her Japanese voice also remains. Unlike the result of translation, the intention is distinct. It's the blunt edge of her Kansai heritage. Mercedes Carriquiry There is no anonymity in Uruguay, at least not the one that lasts. You can grasp sporadically a glimpse of privacy (only sporadically) and it will soon be gone. The country size, the small population or the slow way of life may be the reason. All the same, as cozy as being 24/7 home may sound, the result is Uruguayans living under the gaze; an annoying, troubling gaze. Cozy, à l'abri at home, still unable to get away. Alex Bowron My Geographical Voice oscillates between caution and combat. It is trained in adaptation and attention to detail. By remaining silent it can access intellect and intuition as one.
Annette Abel Nietzsche, Kant, Adorno… The Germans define themselves as the nation of poets and philosophers and surely it is true that they are obsessed by theory, by details as well as by knowledge. Yet, it almost seems as if their long dead thinkers have become ghosts inside of them they too often obey to and that sometimes even deprives them from finding their own/individual voice. Claudio Cravero Saudi Arabia’s art scene is as tense as the hot air The Kingdom discharges in summer. While the Government still oscillates between timid supports and strong public censorship, the artists continuously stretch the boundaries of what is considered art in the country. Since their childhood they learn to double-deal with their social and private face: the two sides of the same coin. Flavia Dalla Bernardina I feel like a no man's land, as if I belonged nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I could live anywhere and speak so many languages I wouldn't have time in this life to learn them all. I am split in so many countries, cultures and colors, disguised in a loud and expansive caucasian Brazilian woman, with Italian citizenship.
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Marina Kassianidou Voices live within, are formed by, and are shared between bodies. Cypriots intuitively know this. They talk by waving their arms, swinging their legs, bouncing up and down, contorting their faces, transforming their postures, reaching out towards their listeners, and continuously altering the tone, volume, and rhythm of their voice. A total, lived-in, embodied mode of (mis) communication. Maeve Hanna Maeve Hanna is Assistant Curator at Two Rivers Gallery in Prince George, BC Canada, 9 hours from anywhere and everywhere. The dichotomy between East and West as opposed to North and South becomes very pronounced once you cross the Rocky Mountain Range bridging Alberta and British Columbia. The mountains are staggeringly high, cut off weather patterns and communication with the other side in some ways. The West is all photo conceptualist, First Nations iconography rehashed in the 21st century in neon lights and graffiti on gallery walls. East is Toronto bound (up in).
I am Writing To... Open Letters in Art Criticism (Notebook), ed. An Paenhuysen
Annalisa Pellino Italians are self-referential. They don’t really trust collaboration and are not confident in sharing competence and creativity. On the contrary, they have a masturbatory attitude in talking and chatting and twitting… not really having anything to say. They don’t see participation as an occasion to be present but as one to make an appearance. Sarah Mercadante I'm a young curator in Paris, my native town. At the moment I curate exhibitions in non-official places with artists I trust, or sometimes I curate to test if it works between our way to work. Ultimately, I try to escape the loud and speedy rhythm of the French capital. Sujin Jung In South Korea, everything suddenly becomes trend and suddenly becomes old-fashioned. It looks like there are a lot of changes, but in fact, it never changes since the class with power is always the same. Making a real change barely happens. Also, although there are tons of contradictions and distortions, everyone is really good at pretending we are doing well, even the best, if only just among the Asian countries.
Published by Node Center – Curatorial Studies Online www.nodecenter.net Š 2016 Node Center and the authors