I feel tempted to turn this blog into an egocentric trip - to write just what I need to research and develop my own works. And I don't think many people would mind (or notice).
The thing is - that was not my objective. The objective was to dwelve into the flesh of new art and discover it anew. Or simply, to learn. To study the things that catch my attention, to write them down like one pins down a problem or takes a picture. The idea was - and is - to grow a possessive blog.
But I'm tired. And need motivation to go on, in the blog and in the remains of the real world. So this time, I want to think about the direction I'm heading artistically.
First, there is the dilemma: theater, performance, fine (new) arts or cinema. All of these interest me to a great extent; none fascinates me enough to choose it and leave the others behind. Is it possible to carry on so many roads? Only if one has the power of a bull, the endurance of a camel and the mind of a monkey. It overwhelms me. Of course, there are artists who do it (almost) all (Greenaway, Matthew Barney, Forced Entertainment, and several others). But I'm not quite there yet. This is a lonely road for now, and the choices are significant - that means, there are few real-life obstacles and what one wishes to do actually changes what one does (as oppose to other periods in life when reality bites and sticks and doesn't let go that easily). So, going back to school would definitely be a good idea. Getting a Masters somewhere, in something. (
is it worth it?) And guess what - they don't have a MA in theater/performance/new media/cinema.
Enough of sad life stories. What about art?
Two artists I have managed not to write about are Vanessa Beecroft and Maurizio Cattelan. Yes, I wrote about their recently discovered
intertwining, but frankly that was just avoiding any serious writing. Actually, I find them both very interesting, I think they do have some things in common, but would like to write about it some more. And I can't. I'm not ready for it. I think the game(s) they play is so subtle that one can easily go into quick judgements that mean nothing - either praising their "strength", or criticizing the many things they are commonly criticized for. For starters, I would say Cattelan is a modern-day Warhol (I know very little about Warhol, as he knew little about Marilyn/Campbell's/the electric chair). And leave it at that for the moment - for my argument's sake. As for Beecroft... well, it's more complicated, since she says less. Whoever says less wins, says one monk to the other - you lost, answers the latter.
Extrapolating, what I want to use from Beecroft is the idea of a perfect order - or rather, of a completely aestheticized reality. It pleases my theater-moulded mind's eye. People as objects, and, might I add, objects that could be people. In that case, we should rather say:
personas. This reminds me of another great performance - Zhang Huan's
To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond. 
The performance is translated into pictures - and what we have is actually archive footage. This is a very interesting phenomenon in live art - the "live" part becomes ambiguous. But not put into question, only blurred. We need the conscience of it being, or having been something real. Once we have it, it can very well be represented by a picture, a film, a text or a fingernail. Because through this footage we get to travel in another way. Maybe it's a little like the fascination for biographies?
Going back to Zhang Huan's work. Contrary to Beecroft's girls (and sometimes boys), Zhang Huan's men have stories. They are all about the stories. They are migrants, the cheap labor force that moved from the countryside to Beijing looking for work. And, according to the artist, in China fish is the symbol of sex, while water - the symbol of life. Now that we have the cosmogony, the pictures speak. The
beautiful pictures speak. Beecroft's pictures don't speak. They ostensibly shut up, as abstract painting or some contemporary theater work (Goat Island, some Forced Entertainment). Tim Etchells from Forced Entertainment has a method of writing for performance which is basically writing lists. The spectator fills the blanks. Minimalist? Hmm... no, not quite. Simply a
very small narrative. Notice that Zhang Huan also doesn't say much: he doesn't judge the people, he doesn't interpret them. He shows them.
Then, there's another idea I really like - the intimacy of reading something for someone. As in, reading out loud, but not for the world, just for someone. I'm not sure where I got that from, there are probably some artists working on it, but I only remember my Dad and my Grandfather reading me books when I was a kid. And then - oh, I know! - I think it was Daniel Pennac who wrote a book describing his experience as a school teacher. He read books out loud for the teenage students. Impressive.
The performance is translated into pictures - and what we have is actually archive footage. This is a very interesting phenomenon in live art - the "live" part becomes ambiguous. But not put into question, only blurred. We need the conscience of it being, or having been something real. Once we have it, it can very well be represented by a picture, a film, a text or a fingernail. Because through this footage we get to travel in another way. Maybe it's a little like the fascination for biographies?
Both pictures are of the exhibition How Are You Today?, by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset (2002, Galleria Massimo de Carlo, Milano)
Julita Wójcik, Peeling Potatoes (Zachęta Polish National Gallery, 2001)
And that, my dear friends, is why I like Peeling Potatoes.
I know, I know this is too easy. But somebody had to do it. And I shouldn't be always so damn serious.
There is something immensely attractive about chaos. Participating in it, even witnessing it, enchants, makes it difficult to resist, as if it - made sense? All the Pollocks of the art world know it - their chaos makes sense, it is no chaos, it has a structure, a fine combination of hazards and traps that guide you into something, and thus out of chaos?
Peter Greenaway, the Welsh author of such films as Pillow Book and The Draughtman's Contract, who is also a multimedia artist, working in media from projections to complex installations/performances to sculptures to painting, has recently participated as Video Jockey in Amsterdam's VJ Temple 11.
This wheelchair is made of cardboard. It was made by Chris Gilmore. When I first saw it, I thought it was brilliant, extremely powerful. The object of fragility, but which at the same time to many people signifies strength, and ability, here is useless, and (therefore?) meaningful. It is a simulacrum, an image of itself, a fake that is the thing itself - as a disabled person may seem (often to himself) the other version of himself. The perfection of the work makes it all the deeper, all the more painful.
Juan de la Mora is a Chicago-born Mexican-American artist living in Madrid. His background is in architecture, but his true passion seems to be stencil art. His works are precise games of colors and forms, often introduced in "low-profile" street contexts. While it is clear de la Mora spent a substantial amount of time experimenting with graffiti on the streets, it is no less clear that in his recent works he takes it to another level, creating multi-layered works with autoCAD (architectural software) and specialized cutting-plotting machines. The exhibition I saw in Montemor-o-Velho (here in Portugal) had two distinct parts. One was the manipulation of the word manipulation, starting with a line and then turning it into a wor(l)d that could be inhabited, though remaining ambiguous, something between a room, a house, an abstract form, very much in the modernist spirit. The other (partially shown here) was a grungy, funky yet surprizingly clean way of playing with stencil forms, using the theme of a gorrilla to create dense, powerful imagery. The two parts might seem completely different, until you meet the man - and discover his passion for art, architecture, street creation, freedom, traveling, and... cooking. His dream - to have a restaurant were everything would be de la Mora design. From the space, through colors, smells and tastes. Now that's a new way of understanding Gesamtkunstwerk!
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