THE FUTURE IS‌
Node Center Notebooks
A collection of exercises from the online course Creative Forms of Art Criticism and Writing, lectured by An Paenhuysen
Vol.1
Pa en hu ys A en dr ia –– n –– A nn a C –– ol a Th M M uc e ar or ci Fu lie tim o – tu Ch s – re e an Ad r – ––– Is – r – …S t i M aa –– Cl el ci –– id ai le n en d re M se 8 l e ce Fa G itc G – – ro Fi la ou he –– ct u –– ll Bu ld n io La d –– –– B n g – ur gy –– –– ac in – – – k – a – A –– M Ca ––– – T – S to rt ar in t h 6 Cr – s h ia ar –– e A ce e iti M Ga sa Th rt re Fu ci ar t sm A L – e u r –– ov rt ia ci F r
A n
m F r t – a –– Za P ia-R –– utu ver ific e –– e – –– ’ s i re ra ui tr al –– W G –– id ity –– z i e u S s l 4 M id ig es Ni l, I A 1 a 0 e on gl r c s n – ik ek ––– ola Th tefa to t d t h Pa a u o h e c – vl Lu w – – A –– re a t –– e G e C i sz –– th ––– –– ala on F Pe na ut – en – p –– xy tem u T gg Ky ak –– Je s T he re 16 –– po rk – y ? ff o – Re – H o S d – – –– ran na Za u – ––– Koo ay om ––– –1 ei – a s – n t e 4 2 ty –– n – Ve a S k l s 6 y d 1 20 of ni To Ga 8 um ––– –– T Ci 15 t m lle ne Zh a P m ––– he –– o r m –– rro y – en ob o-O 30 Gr a e l – oc ia ’C at – 2 w – ––– –– Sv ki on – Be –– –– 4 es –– ne –– –– – 20 au ll – hi –– Ab 12 ty 2 – – n 2 ou an sk – A ––– tt d n y – th he –– Off – 3 e –– au th 2 N – ew –W eW th or Er e’l al s a lN lS Fl –– ev ug ân –– g e eu –– r B es r– 38 t e –– Bo ion – –– re – – –2 d –– ––– 8 –– 34 –– 36
Pa en hu ys en A n
4
The Future Is… Science Fiction in Art Criticism What is trending at the moment? “Trending” fits perfectly to the world of fashion: fashion can’t be out of touch or it wouldn’t be fashion. But trending seems to contradict the world of the arts. Art doesn’t want to be hip. It’s unadapted and unadjusted. It counters hypes. Whereas fashion is quickly outdated, (good) art is timeless. Yet also in the arts there is the pressure to invent something new every season, to cross a new boundary. And doesn’t art also reveal current developments in society? To be a good creator, Gertrude Stein said, is not to be in advance of your generation, but to be the first of your contemporaries to be conscious of what is happening to your generation.
5
Art criticism and trending meet at art fairs. It’s defined by whatever sells best and this results in an analysis driven by the market. Beyond art fairs, art criticism and trending don’t seem to be an easy match. Reviews rarely go beyond the level of details, and often refrain from opening up to a bigger realm. The Future Is… Science Fiction in Art Criticism aims to see the bigger picture and to propose an outlook. It was written during an online course “Creative Forms in Art Writing” during springtime 2015 at Node Center – Curatorial Studies Online, which brought together writers from all over the world, talking about what they experience in their local art scene. It is from this “glocal” perspective that The Future Is... suggests a prognosis of what is about to come in the 21st century arts.
A dr ia na
Co lu cc io
6
Middle Ground I am always filled with a sense of excitement and bewilderment as I approach the vast display windows of Art Mur. They have solidified themselves as a gallery that is on the cutting edge of contemporary art in Quebec and as a breeding ground for the next great artists. Having followed one of the artists in this exhibition for some time (somewhat even unintentionally), I have a peculiar interest in experiencing the direction of his next body of works. I remember, in my first year of undergrad studies, peering in awe at a large impressively realist painting of a girl sitting on a couch peering back at me. Nicholas Grenier’s painting practice has changed a lot over the years and has almost taken a prescribed turn away from representation to the more abstract conceptual. The exhibition space is severed with monolith like constructions. Each monolith has one façade painted in a painstakingly perfect gradation of impeccable color. The other facades; beautiful wood grain stains. Almost littered leaning against these monolith structures are tiny little painting painted with those impressive gradations of color. The mixture of wall mounted paintings and installation paintings allows the viewer to experience the work not just as the space of the picture plane but in a different experience with the space as a whole.
7
Up close to the works the ideas of the title of the exhibition, Schemas / Assorted Templates, becomes more apparent as you begin to notice the paintings have very delicate precise cut outs of lines and arrows displayed in a manner that reminds me of Cartesian graphs. These lines and arrows dart from side to side and up and down the canvas:
Deep Shit ˂-----˃ Middle Ground ˂-----˃ Functional Government ˂-----˃ Hope ˂-----˃ Fuck You
There is a beckoning for change in our structures and a trying to logically make sense of where we are heading. One of the paintings pleads: ˂---˃ Things are going to change I can feel it ˂---˃ But ˂---˃ Your opinions ˂---˃ Fuck You ˂---˃
Much of these exquisite gradations of color are subdued and murky. This color structure feels less hopeful and more hopeless. Opposed to the feeling of a calling to a new structure I am left with the feeling of being stuck in the mud. As the arrows of these diagrams go up, down and back facing each other they are perpetually going nowhere. The strictures of our structures so strict we are stuck in the middle with no progress.
M or ti m er A nn a
8
Hark back and reference
corporeal, the psyche,
the gaze, the male, t
the larger the be
squint back a
meaningful
a quest
the s
w
Based on Richard Serra at The Gagosian Gallery and Freud and Eros: Love, Lust and Longing at The Freud Museum, London
9
The Future is‌.
e, mirror and reflect repeat, repeat the same old the same old the same the
, the imaginary, the ego, ego, ego, too and fro, repeat the same old same
the female (what do women want) lack lack lack the same old the same
etter, overpowering and architectural, tailor made to stay the same
and reinterpret and repeat the same old the same the same the
l and poignant, vacuous and trite, we offer an opinion we dare
tion but we are encouraged to rethink, be blank and think
same old the same old the same the same the same the
words and text are taut and loose but we are made to think the same old the same old the same reach back, reflect and repeat and the shout becomes a whisper the look just a glance the same old same old shh! s‌
M ar lie s
A dr ia an se
10
Back to the Future ART 2015
Trending: putting gray vintage artists in the last decade of their life in the spotlight. The Netherlands will present the work of herman de vries on the Venice Biennial, a global platform for this ninety year old, former ZERO artist, writer of the manifest NUL = 0 in 1961. Since 1975 he sees his work as a visualisation of his philosophical ideas, and the reality ‘nature’ as an artwork in itself. 2015… from Zombie Formalism back to Nature? After Occupy and the opinion changing publications of Naomi Klein and Thomas Piketty, the neo-liberal western world will turn into the decades of declutter! Consumers become consu-less-er and start to declutter, live in smaller houses with less stuff, and everybody gets a basic income and goods as status symbol disappear and… Yes!!!… The commercial art market implodes! Finally everybody can be an artist.
11
21st century ALL = ONE
4/5 of the world population living in mega cities, countries dissolve in several citystates spread over the globe. The people living in each region become one entity, like an army of ants: all connected, moving and acting, as one organism. This community becomes one big artist and the nature surrounding the city region becomes their work of art. The surrounding reality 'nature' inspires and visualizes the philosophy, concepts, talents and thoughts of all, the people. At the end of the 21st century, nature has become a form of art, and seems to be saved from further destruction. Art is All, Art is All‌ And all you need at the butterfly ball : )
Ch an te lle
M itc he ll
12
Sincere Artificiality and the Contemporaneity of Cinema
Every era perceives itself as unfurling faster than the one before; as speeding ahead of the past, and wildly careering into new territory. Looking outwardly at the present, ‘now’ appears to be defined by immediacy: news travels in seconds across the optic fiber cables stretching around the globe, witnesses share their experiences of major events as they happen through the use of trending hashtags. As ideas such as ‘time’ and ‘distance’ grow smaller in the digital world, how can the flickering lights of something as old and durational as cinema keep up, stay relevant, and contemporary? The way that cinema is consumed has changed as the 21st century unfolds. Rather than the musty seats of cinemas, illuminated by holy projections onto mammoth screens, more and more audiences are turning to the intimate spaces of their own homes, and engaging digital devices in the pursuit of film. In these same homes, people use the same devices to project their lives into the world through social media and the internet. Many millions of people sit down in front of small, glowing screens to curate their digital selves. Through carefully worded social media posts, heavily filtered photographs and extensively edited snapshots of the everyday, lives are subtly transformed, and reality becomes artificial.
13
In light of the notion of digitally mediated selves and scripted, artificial realities, subtle shifts in film-making can be identified. From the early 2000s, small seeds of what can be termed ‘sincere artificiality’ can be identified in the films of directors such as Sofia Coppola and Michel Gondry, later blooming in the works of Wes Anderson and Spike Jonze. Artificiality has become, in the 21st Century, a way of sincerely engaging with the contemporary world. This is affirmed by films such as Her (2013) Mood Indigo (2013) or The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), with their constructed dreamscapes representing a rejection of the irony and pastiche of the post-modern era. Not only do these films reflect conceptually and visually the artificiality of the real world and the digital manipulation of the self, films such as Her, and recently, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman (2014) are exploring the selves as fractured in the space between analogue realities and digital realities. As the look, and the content of cinema changes and adapts to contemporary questioning of identity and reality, it becomes apparent that the perceived speed of the contemporary world has bearing on cinema, only in terms of look and content — not as a questioning of the contemporary relevance of the medium.
Go ul d Cl ai re
14
The Art Lover’s Guide to the Galaxy
In a recent article published on the sonic waves of EarthNews, a Tweet now unearthed roaming the galactic system since 2020 is grounding evidence to challenge the infinite skepticism eclipsing the earliest ever art space mission ARTSPACE. The art space race began in 2020 with a mission by NARTSA (the National Arts Space Agency) to send stellar artists from Earth where they had never been before: an exploration transcending time and space. But critics hissed: “It’s all fiction! No science! No art!” Others ranted the mission should rather shuttle the Turner Prize selection committee on a one-way voyage. Two art-stronauts were selected by the NARTSA committee (consisting art experts, cosmologists, and technicians), and since the costs final frontier of art were out of this world, esteemed collectors, philanthropists, and gallerists joined to support the exploration. Richard Serra (aged 79, the oldest on the mission) submitted Curved Cosmic Contemplation, a pair of majestic interlaced heavyweight signature steel slab works weighing 100 metric tons. Truly gravity-defying. In his statement, Serra wrote ”I looked for ways to approach space. The horizon on the moon fascinates, intimidates too. I wanted to create both a place to cower from it but also to create a new, false horizon.” He added “The weatherproof steel has no relevance in such inhospitable conditions. I like this contradiction.”
15
Richard Prince (aged 70) submitted #Overspace, a pop project of fictional images from space for re-appropriation during realspace-time, on-mission-in-situ. Sent via SSM (space social media), the works were transmitted to an exhibition in his intergalactic gallery where he was “Hoping to attract visitors currently alien to visiting galleries.” So why does the evidence only now come to light after all these light years?
In an interview with NARTSA, technicians claim that hitches at the time caused delays in the messages from ARTSPACE via social media and the mission’s own MOON (Media Out Of Nowhere) — a system prompting jokes about earthlings receiving ‘Moonies’ from space. (Apparently revealing more than one can see with the naked eye). Other Hubble-double-troubles were caused by damage to satellites from space rubbish interrupting transmissions, and hackers from a competing mission distorting posts and messages from the Moon’s ‘white cube noise’ into ‘black noise’ from the darkest depths of the galaxy. Despite all this, the tourist mission gave the visual arts universal recognition. One visitor described it as a #Once-in-a-lifetimeSSMS*. And one tabloid headline wrote, “The art world will never have it’s feet on the ground again.” Serra’s work continues at ARTSPACE until 2089 and Prince’s planetary work is still orbiting the image waves. And the story of the mission The Art Lover’s Guide to the Galaxy can be read in a publication released at the next solar eclipse. Watch this space.
*SSMS = solar-system-must-see
Bu gg y Fa la
16
The Future is Artefact The revolution started in Kilmainhaim Jail, IMMA. Trove was the name of the ship, Dorothy Cross was the captain. It was about putting things on their own; out of flatness, control and language. There was never permission to be in place; everything occupies its own alien space. She raided the National Archives, intimidating order, disturbing dust, object and witness; this was her action.
Cross opened the chest. Gold Orbs, leaf and linen orbiting around a broken solar system; homes will be purpose built for the past.
17
1
She is a maker but didn’t make. Hands up and down are tied; cleaning, collecting, found and finding.
2
She used her eyes to dig graves. Stones stood up to sting the skin of man; they had hoped for the return of a wounded brother. A mother descends, her grief will be lost in translation.
3
Gold Beads 700-900BC; Patrick Scott, Meditation Painting, 2007; Nest of oven bird, 1904; Orrery (solar system).
1
A Skull, head, face and teeth without records are seen from the inside out. They are there without eyes but knowing a gaze contorts them. Identity will be a fickle thing.
4
Cross tells us to stop and feel the warmth of the dead things. The ancient blackness of a meteorite makes his bed at the foot of a sagging armchair. The sleeping nymph breathes in her white marble shell.
5
Cross has crossed the line. Football tactics cannot rest here. Bird calls will still your revolution. The wooden weapons are not obsolete. The future is made in the past.
6
Les Levine, The Troubles, 1972; Richard Thomas Moynan, Study of a dead Zulu, 1883; Margaret Clarke, The Foundling, 1925; Gloves made from byssus thread.
2
Ten Ogham Stones, 5th – 7th Century A.D.; Sheela-na-gig, medieval period, image of Apollo, 350 BC replaced by male model, approx. 57 yrs. old.
3
Teeth of extinct shark, 10 million yrs.; John Comerford, eight unfinished miniature portraits, 1790s; Halloween Mask, 1951; Skull of longfinned pilot whale; John Lawlor, The Blind Girl at Castle Cuille; John Hayes, Samuel Beckett (in dark glasses), 1973.
4
Georgian Irish wing armchair; Iron Meteorite, 4.5 billion yrs.; After Antonio Canova, A Sleeping Nymph, 1820.
5
William Orpen, The Revolutionary, 1902; Murdo MacLeod, Portrait of Roy Keane with Bird Skull, 2002; Skeleton of extinct Rodriguez Solitaire, 18731874; Training rifle. 6
18 La ur a
Ca sa rs a
Well, Is There a Future?
We are living in a liquid era, in a pool of possibilities where people are swimming with disorientation — naked, because you know, we have to face the economic crisis. For the youngest generation everything seems to be possible and at the same time so difficult to achieve. The mainstream media are shaping the awareness of the masses and at the same time the flow of digital communications allows us to achieve a deep knowledge of the major contemporary issues with an easy and quick click. Our actions are wrapped in a veil of uncertainty and instability but we are still thrilled by the wide range of opportunities that the world can offer to us. This is what we are feeling in our everyday-life and, by reflection, in the art world. The contemporary Institutions are also disoriented and it seems they are trying to find a foothold cataloguing and documenting the past and the present. So we have for example the Gioni’s Palazzo Enciclopedico at the Venice Biennale and the Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s documenta, archives of the contemporary tendencies trying to figure out what the future can be. Is there going to be a revolution? A big movement able to shock this unshakable society? To break the unbreakable boundaries that we still face today but that seem to be invisible? This attention to archives and documentation can be seen also through the explosion of art publications. Nowadays publications are not just
The medium of the book, reveals the need among art professionals and artists to go deeper, to explain, to show the research behind the project in this always more self-referential art world. The choice of the book as a medium, that can be also digital, is furthermore a natural response to the easy mobility of contemporary society: with a book an artist can expand his public unlimitedly. If with an exhibition we know that just a certain amount of people will see the artwork, with the creation of the book you can break the space barriers, you can send it all around the world at the same time and digitally so it can be visible to everybody. The written world and the book as an object are the pillars of knowledge and these pillars can give us an orientation regarding the future of contemporary art. Self-publishing and Art publishing indeed, with the support of digital devices, can create new meanings and ways of artistic production. These interventions are telling us that if there will be a future for contemporary art, this will be less hermetic, less self-referential and more accessible.
19
documenting exhibitions, but they function as an alternative exhibition space where the medium of the “book� takes over the function of a gallery, filling pages instead of white walls. The production of art books is an emerging trend in contemporary culture that involves both artists and young publishers and this is proven by the numerous art fairs and new publishing houses that are founded day by day all over the world.
20
The Homely Gallery ARCO, the most important contemporary art fair in Spain, took place last February in Madrid. Among all the booths, there was one that was quite unusual. L21 Gallery built an apartment in the middle of the fair. The booth was a replica of an exhibition in the gallery’s space in Palma de Mallorca, called The Apartment (piloto). In this exhibition the gallery was turned into a house, creating a dialogue between art and the domestic space. It was awarded by ARCO as the best exhibition of 2014 . The idea of building a house in an art fair is not new. Other galleries have tried to do the same before, like the apartment of a 1968 fictional collector that the Helly Nahmad Gallery created for the last edition of Frieze. But L21 has done something different. The gallery-apartment will last for a year, hosting five exhibitions that interact
L21始s proposal reflects the necessity to find new ways to show artworks since the old concept of the white cube gallery is exhausted and isolates the art work from today始s audience. It始s very exciting to find something singular in a fair because, let始s be honest, most art fairs are almost identical, regardless of where they take place.The idea of designing a space where, once you go inside, you can forget where you are, is worth it. By changing the space, also the art of the future will have to make some changes. To evolve or to die, right?
21
ic ol au N iz Ga rc ia -R u M ar ia
with the domestic space. Weekly events create a truly lived space. L21 wants to offer a place to be with other people, where you can spend time to escape from today's busy and quick routine. In ARCO, they organized talks by artists and curators in order to make the space more "livable" and to stop the frenetic rhythm of this kind of event.
Pe tr id es M ar ia
22
Athens Today and Tomorrow
Depression Era is a new type of exhibition showing at the Benaki museum in Athens, Greece, not Georgia. A collective spelt Kollectiv8 of 36 artists, photographers, writers, curators, designers and researchers based in Athens, anxious to showcase the real gritty living conditions of life in Athens since its major economic whack in 2009. The show is made of several videos and mostly documentary photographs (still trendy these days), though smaller in scale and budget than what we’ve been used to seeing the past years in big museums. Unafraid to point fingers at those responsible for the current condition, the artists turned (good) journalists/ researchers discuss their own work and emotional processes on large sections of the museum’s walls. Interviews, conversations, everyday chats in the neighbourhood make up the corpus of the photographs in this show. Stories of hardship, racism and exploitation surround most of the working class expatriates around which Depression Era is conceived. Aware of the aestheticization that comes with “documenting”, the collective's members insist on staying political, while still staying artists in a western world of increasing “tolerance”, selective “freedom of speech”, assumed “neutrality” and self-referentiality. Enveloping visitors from
23
one of the exhibition’s wall is Boris Groy’s manifest-esque narrative, resounding throughout the museum space. “Art activists do want to be useful, to change the world, to make the world a better place — but at the same time, they do not want to cease being artists. And this is the point where theoretical, political, and even purely practical problems arise.” Members of the Kollectiv8 themselves have curated the show and on your visit you could be sure to find one of the artists waiting to walk casually with you through the exhibition. Some members are also the same people making the work. There are no curators attached to the museum’s branding. Better to be outside the institution or in with the underrepresented? Aware of the politics of institutions and the politics of exclusion, the collective has made a choice to bring to the forefront those deliberately cut off from being socially integrated. A revolutionary exhibition, I hummed to myself, as I hopped into the conversation racing between the artist and animated crowd. “Artists are no longer consumers or producers. They’re researchers.” An instance of how the art world might look tomorrow? A show that strays away from displays of much selfindulgence, borderline between boredom and exhaustiveness, an exhibition-ism for the privileged percentage. Depression Era may be too particular, a bit like the people being viewed, who in struggling to keep their lives together have landed themselves in a vertiginous hub. But it cuddles the return to the tough, personal narrative that many relaxed art visitors would rather skip. It bravely raises what’s “ordinarily” mistreated and curtailed to the fringes of society to the limelight of our everydayness.
24
During Jeff Koon’s retrospective at the Whitney buses in New York were wrapped in adverts for his collaboration with H&M. The product a black shoulder bag stamped with his trademark balloon dog in yellow.
Jeff Koons 2015
Both Koons and H&M are democratic yet problematic. H&M democratises fashion, but promotes frenzied consumption and landfills of polyester clothes. And Koons? On one hand the pop-cultural fun of his work draws the notso-sold-on contemporary art crowd into the museum. Once in they are exposed to art likely to win them over: big and colourful squeakyclean emblems of the late capitalist era. There is criticality in his earlier works — for example the series Luxury and Degradation which presented advertisings visual language reflecting (or creating) different socio-economic notions of taste. His later works err on the lines of ambiguity. Take the large reflective bunnies, which embody multiple metaphors: Hugh Hefner’s girls, kids toys, shiny sterile consumerist objects, the fluid lines of Botteli. As Koons himself says he strives to make art that engages the senses and intellect, offering a ‘foothold’ into the work. But this exhibition could also
Si gg le ko w
25
How Koons will be perceived and displayed in the future is contingent, naturally, on the state of things to come. Ideally, in a world more humble and careful his giant sculptures will be viewed as kaleidoscopic looking glasses into a past era. Alternatively, picture a white cube decaying, like the ruin porn currently coming out of Detroit and various dystopian visions in popular culture. In the middle sits a dull ensemble of Koon’s work, faded but maintaining a dull sheen of times past.
Za ra
be viewed as a sick visual manifestation of the hyper capitalist zeitgeist. His works achieve ridiculously high sums in a bloated art market, indicative of growing income disparity. Although his early works may have subtly critiqued consumerism his later works embrace it. Also, Koon’s ideas seem a bit stuck and repetitive, an ageing art star in a self-congratulatory market-validated loop. Anecdotes from his personal life also pervade the wall text adding to the ‘male artist as creative genius’ cliché. When looking at his oversized glossy sculptures with this in mind their visceral tactility becomes a tad nauseating; the big lump of play-doh isn’t that fun anymore.
Marcel Duchamp developed his idea of conceptual art when he felt too much attention was being paid to the artwork as an object. He emphasized the idea behind it. Now, 100 years later too much attention is being paid to the ideas and the story telling and discourse take up all space. The time has come for the artwork to claim again it’s right to be noticed by the eye. It is not the idea of going backward but moving forward by looking for the new perspectives. It’s about creating an experience for the audience deprived of the facilitation, explanation, interpretation, artists’ statements, interpretative wall texts and explanative press releases. On the contrary, the new idea is to confuse the audience and put off the scent, somehow to create the unlearning experience of the conventions of an art show. Let us explore the possibilities of the art exhibition and art presentation to reveal the artwork and make the audience notice it through the necessity of making their own decisions and having their own opinions. The immersive art enters the stage of great
27
Lu sz pa k ka M on i
experimentation through misleading the reality and the audience. It needs a new language: the immersive art criticism is the answer. Whereas the immersive art is sometimes accused of being too easy and too entertaining, the immersive art criticism would be both demanding by means of its written form and it be as fun as possible. Who has ever complained about a too amusing art review? Fiction writing is needed to immerse the reader into the impossibly possible and make him or her imagine more than he or her possibly could. Wouldn’t it be great to be deluded and to be forced to draw the conclusions from an exciting story? To gather the clues like a detective? This new level of immersion brings so much joy and excitement of being puzzled. One may almost say: who needs art with art criticism like this? But, finally, it is thrilling to go if you don’t know.
Pa vl in a
Ky rk ou
28
The Great Beauty and the New Era Fl창neur The Great Beauty is a fact. It is indisputable and timeless. In the film La Grande Bellezza (Paolo Sorrentino, 2015) Jep Gambardella, a successful journalist, is transformed into a contemporary fl창neur, strolling among photogenic people and perfect sceneries. He is both a viewer and a listener, capturing stimuli from his environment; a bon-vivant who, on the occasion of his 65th birthday, looks back at his own wandering with a critical eye. The only thing left to him, is the recognition of his only novel The Human Apparatus, which made him famous when he was young. The perfection seems to be a tramp, as are the perfect houses, the frenetic social life, the tailor-made clothes and the admirable city Rome surrounding the Gambardella and creating a luring image that strongly tempts the viewer. But Gambardella, like a true antihero, prevents us from surrender. Adopting a cynical and sarcastic personality, he is a living example of vanity and void, admitting that he still has not find his own place within the great
29
beauty, which he was searching life-long. The juxtaposition between life shown and hidden,between the eternal element and the decay, is increasingly strengthened as the movie goes on.The photography of the film works as a perfect mantle, which still reveals what lies beneath it. Gambardella is the artist of today, the observer and the deep thinker of the never-ending changes that have, both a great impact on real life and no impact at all on the substance of true "beauty". He resists, he doubts non-stop, he achieves his integrity in a very painful way. Through loss and effort he creates an art of living, not only aesthetically but behaviourally, blinking the eye to the meaning of the art of today and, why not, the art of the future. Art is a fact. It is beyond existing space and conscious reality.
Za sk Pe gg y
S
30
Today there is a strange lull in the art world. The social media has produced a tumult of befuddled artists basing their artistic mastery on vacant comments from random friends. Hollow art theories and fleeting manifestos are interchanged incessantly. Art critics disparage each other with no point of departure. This is an exciting time. Zombie formalism, a walking corpse of formal abstraction is a turning point. Artists cease to produce works of art and retreat into quiet meditations and psychic synchronicities, the new frontier awaits. No white cube, no Facebook, no object.
31
Enter the transcendent age as creative expression bypasses traditional means. Art as commodity disconnects from the economy. Art, like religion, has become archaic. A flourishing of support allows for universal visionaries to gather in alternative spaces seeking the quintessence of art — no more rockets to the moon or space exploration, new alternative spaces will develop within the mindset of this transcendent age.
O’ Co nn el l Re na ta
Su m m o-
32
Information will be ubiquitous and Art will be ubiquitous tomorrow. The multiple past lives of art do not compare to the multiplicity of today’s art worlds. Take for example the two concurrent phenomena of over-connectivity and insularity that artists and arts perform today. Information flow regulates this dynamics. To this rate information is bound to be ubiquitous and tomorrow art will be ubiquitous. Being the future, as we all know, better than any past, the future of art is going to be wildly healthy, as diverse and constantly changing as chameleon skins.
33
For that reason, it will also be a permanently mega-galactic affair where art is performed, as it is selfdefined wherever one wants and whenever one wants. Art will be as original as a copy and as cheap as a replica. For these reasons, art will ultimately be free of monetary value and a flowing, continuous, disposable performance. Critics, curators, historians will have no reason to exist any longer just as art will instantly belong to its fruiters the moment they access it. Artists however will still be around although it will be only after a long strenuous struggle that they will finally confront and conquer the only thing the rest of the populace is enslaved by: algorithms. The future is art above all else, indeed art as a procedure to solve a problem.
Po bl oc ki Ve ni ta
34
An Off the Wall Suggestion I see you EVERYWHERE. And that is not a compliment. When I walk my dog, I see you squeezed between two impossible buildings. When I buy groceries, you are perched high above the car park. When I cycle through the park, there you are flashing by me in the middle of the path. And worst of all, you greet me outside my place of coffee. every. single. morning. And I’m TIRED. Tired that you interrupt my visual landscape with your sprayed black letters. ALoHA Every time I see you I read those letters and say that single word in my mind over and over. A Tourette. Are you not going insane from inane repetition? Yes, I understand the possible joke. ALoHA = Hello! But kiddo the joke has worn thin. You are like an ex-boyfriend I no longer want to see but can’t stop bumping into no matter which turn I take. Here I am again! ALoHA! Again and again and again.
35
The time has come. It’s time to stop randomly tagging and mature into a 21st Century street artist. Emphasis on the word artist. And actually let’s lose street. Leave behind the subculture that nurtured your itching rebellion. Lower your hood and enter the inner circle. Enter the market. Think of all the crisp white walls you can fill with aerosol. All the walls of the new money market who will hang your piece of revolt in their flawless homes. Think of the zeros. Wait a moment. This feels all too familiar. Been done before? So then what is the future? How can I reclaim my dog walks and you satisfy your itch? Let’s compromise. An idea. Go beyond being a commodity and fight the class war on equal turf. Claim the most public space there is. The internet. Think global not local. Why stop at the streets or the gallery or on a collector’s wall? You could have it all. #ALoHA No need to wait for midnight to tick over and scramble your way up cold brick walls only to fall again. Just think… from the warmth of your home you can claim unlimited space. Seems like a comfortable retirement plan, too, no?
Sv es hi ns ky Zh en ia
36
We’ll Never be Bored
Last night I stood in line awaiting my turn to enter the “fastest pop up multi-disciplinary exhibition ever”. I was looking forward to seeing “the unpolished reaction to the creative zeitgeist of 2015” in Looiersgracht 60 in Amsterdam. Mind you, the first month of 2015 was barely half way through, but it’s good to have a vision, I thought, dancing on the spot and clapping my hands to stay warm. The Generation 2015 selection included a broad selection of genre, style and media. Twenty six young and talented makers were arranged alphabetically and granted total freedom to create anything as long as it represented the first letter of their last name. Carte blanche within a total lack of context — a sort of bitter-sweet freedom. The work, that gathered the largest crowd was a video piece where several young men told the audience how many cunts have they seen in real life. Among others were pieces of wearable technology, an object with sustainable use of electricity, and a book on reduction of language. But the popularity of these works as well as the rest of the show depended largely on their proximity to the bar. It would be dishonest to say that what I’ve encountered inside was a complete disappointment. Neither was it a surprise. It was rather a kind of warm feeling of recognition, a confirmation of something familiar. It’s been forever that cultural critics have been complaining about how life is getting too fast for us to really be part of it, leading to superficial experiences. I heard my inner nerd clearing its throat to squeak something of that kind
37
when I thought of a symposium titled “me you and everyone we know is a curator”, that I attended in 2009 in Amsterdam. Devoted largely to digital practices and virtual art it showed how for example techniques of quantitative analysis of images can bring qualitative results into critical and curatorial practices. Almost every single attendee of the conference, including the speakers were taking notes, tweeting, reading, sharing, liking and researching on multiple screens at the same time. By no means the speedy multitasking felt as a superficial experience. How much art did I see yesterday? To be honest, just like the guys in the video piece, I’ve seen very little of it. Not enough to truly evaluate it, to praise or despise it. Between the crowds of well dressed, pomaded and red lipped visitors sipping beer and cocktails, the kisses on the air near the cheeks that sounded louder than anything else. The concentration of stylish people was higher than that of remarkable pieces. Here art was entirely overshadowed by the very cultural happening facilitating it. And while openings have always been more of a social event than a moment to contemplate work, here it may have just have taken over the exhibition. If that’s what 2015 will bring, and let’s extend this to the 21st century, we may not see much art live, but we’ll definitely not be bored! An acquaintance and cultural entrepreneur raised his glass from the corner of the room. “To the first show of 2015!” — he cheered as if it was an important milestone in his career. A socializing career. As I left the gallery, the line outside extended around the corner. With almost everyone standing there with their smart phone in hand, I would not be surprised if they have already seen the show and are now ready to join all the other curators inside for the finisage of the year 2015 and beyond.
Authors
Adriana Coluccio A Canadian voice like a syrup of polite passive tolerance but with a slur of French Canadian opinionated passive-aggression. Anna Mortimer The British voice is so softly self - deprecating So careful not to offend that it eventually disappears down the plughole glug glug glug Claire Gould I have no distinctive, geographical voice. Along the way my mother tongue met other languages. They conversed. They mixed. They observed. They re-invented themselves. Now they are trying to be a family, living in the same house and cooking meals together. Laura Casarsa Italians are flamboyant. You can recognize our voice among the others, because we are always — in real life and in art criticism — exuberant, energetic, confident, theatrical and stylish. I like to think that my Italian voice is now influenced by the Berlin vibe, becoming day by day more rigorous and simple. I am taking off the “decorations" to reveal just the essence of my thoughts. Maria Petrides Greeks are genial and gingerly. They are not cruel optimists. They like to make noise, to make sure they are heard among car pollution, public transport, street vending and pigeon sonority. They talk and drink coffee and drink coffee and talk. They also like to set things in motion. Monika Luszpak The Polish voice is a voice of contestation, due to polish cynicism and a long tradition of opposition many things are perceived as not worth to be discussed and the rest of them are perceived as not worth to be discussed seriously.
Pavlina Kyrkou The existence of a geographical aspect in expression, takes for granded the cultural oppositions, which, nowadays seem more and more "flatened". Nevertheless, if one would attempt to track down the "Greek voice", he would realise that Greeks are freely-expressed in terms of every-day life and critique. But, when the time for public speech and exposure comes, they tend to be more precautious. This fact, added to their resistence towards the "contemporary", often leeds to analytical approaches and extensive quoting of other' s words, as a form to strengthen and give reliability to the personal opinion. Peggy S Zask USA has a powerful voice with a heedless need to uphold its image. My voice reflects on this glossy surface seeking substance behind the attitude. Renata Summo-O’Connell After twenty years of berlusconic aesthetic rave the country is artistically stoned as well as orgiastically enthusiastic. I am a little butterfly on the wall, coming from twenty years in Australia I am still trying to understand if Banksy drew me. Marlies Adriaanse The Dutch voice — Talking loud with a clear opinion, straight forward, no vague, circling around a topic or saying a lot but actually nothing. That can be fine but not always. Specially these days since it is almost suspicious to show some kind of intellect. And it becomes normal to talk about art as a left wing hobby. While artists are working more and more like right wing entrepreneurs. And the auction prices go sky high! Some Dutch are short sighted and bad informed as well.
Maria Garcia-Reuiz Nicolau Majorcans speak as if they were singing a song about our beloved island and our millennial traditions. It's a thick voice, a hermetic character that sounds proud of itself, of its roots. No matter how far we go, we always need to come back, because there's no place like home. Fala Buggy The Irish Voice, tea soaked optimism Zara Sigglekow A New Zealander in Australia. Art here: Antipodean progressive provincialism? Zhenia Sveshinsky I sometimes have to fight my Russian drama with a Jewish sense of humour. And living in the Netherlands I’ve learned to do it “in your face”. Chantelle Mitchell Australians are like reservoirs, filled with words. Small sentences trickle out, infrequently. Until, a rare trigger… and then, stored up words spill out and over, like a deluge pouring upon parched desert lands. As quickly as it begins, it is over. Venita Poblocki From Australia, I used to sit on the island and look out. Then I realised the revolution is happening behind me.
Published by Node Center – Curatorial Studies Online www.nodecenter.net Š 2015 Node Center and the authors