Success

Nope this isn’t a post about some amazing achievement or that I have somehow have a bank account in the black.  Its more of a reflection on what success is for me, and specifically in my art practice.  Whilst teaching here in Saas Fee (means to fund my art practice) I get asked a lot by my guests whether my artwork/practice is successful.  The two means for validation lie mainly on me telling them whether I sell my work regularly or am I famous.  I guess in this day and age you know one unless you are on some list of success even if you are Z list Celeb…

I am honest with my guests, I am not known however like most emerging artists we are labeled so for that very reason.  As for selling, it has not been a focus within my practice to make specifically objects.  Commodifying an art practice is something we all contemplate throughout our years.  However at present I rely on my snowboard coaching as a source of income whilst I develop my voice and direction in my practice.

Success for me is nothing to do with money or notoriety and its something I feel is harder to gain.  It is purely one thing for me and the works I make which is conversation or discussion (discourse if you want art-speak 2.0).  This very basic element within the art world and beyond is not that easy to gain.  Yes in the era of social media it is easy to put work out there for more to see but to hear back is not so simple.  There is very little echo from the majority of not just my work but my peers.  The little that does come back is more of support from fellow creatives who spur you on.  However for me I seek success in the form of something more in the conversation that good art creates.  Don’t get me wrong this is not purely about adulation or people describing works as life changing its the chat surrounding how it engages and interacts on different levels and people.  This discussion is not always sought from those that like or get the work but rather negative and constructive response is just as valid.  I come from a belief that good work is so when you have a response to it this can be in the form or negative: repulsion, hate or anger.  Whilst also the positive: resonates, refreshes perspective or challenges existence.  Work that sits in the middle is what just fades.

Following on from my previous post about being adrift, the reason to currently make work whilst not be located within a place or group.  I see this isolation as a hard time to know where to exhibit or present work when I barely exist.  For me the motivation of making work when I deep down know that the rational for the work being successful is this conversation adds to stalling of making.  The works are still there in my head and whilst I navigate the next few years I will create. However finding a means to connect with networks or environments where I can gage the validity of the work is part of the process and for me right now is the biggest challenge.

Auxiliary Progress…

Since arriving here in Stockton my time has been spent exploring not just the local landscape but also my current limits of my practice. I came here looking to examine how I install current workings of sonic works and how I can develop or bridge the gap that I find between what I am making and what I am trying to offer.

The first few weeks were spent contemplating speaker architecture and how installing speaker drivers within a form that dissolved or collapsed whilst it functioned worked.  Drawing on the inspiration of the local area and its regeneration hopes/plans.  I have been thinking heavily about addition and reduction as methods of creation both in sound and process works.  Glitch process that I have been known to use is a perfect example of how regeneration seems to operate, existing ideology is rehashed the result is urban planning that though clearly considered it is not until it is implemented you realise the functional errors of such planning.

The focus on heritage and community, the life and death of generations that have called a place home.  The time that passes by and the marks those leave on a place last longer than structures in many cases.  Replacing old is not something that should be done without consideration and awareness for those that live within it.  The Auxiliary residency is based within a community that is exposed to many different social factors.  It is an opportunity to live within a place that is struggling to come to terms with how it should function.  The oddity is that with all the trials and time that it takes to rejuvenate a place it somehow still continues, functions without much thought.  Time will change the nature of a community however daily this is not something that is really brought to your attention as each day was like the last.

Mid way through this residency my father has a stroke which alongside my research here at the Auxiliary has given me a new perspective.  Seeing a parent go through a life changing moment in their existence brings reality home.  I have recently been back and forth between the residency and my parents to see how my father has progressed with his recovery.  Even though I have not been making as much as I would of hoped it has provided much needed reflection, thinking more about the sound works that have been started yet not finished.  The last few weeks here in Stockton I hope to realise some new works with little or no focus on completion yet more or presenting something that is mobile/fluid and evolving.  

 

 

DIP YOUR TOE – Govanhill Baths, Glasgow

DIP YOUR TOE

Govanhill Baths Community Trust

99 Calder Street, G42 7RA Glasgow, United Kingdom

Preview: Thursday 16th June 6:00 – 9:00pm
Open: 17th – 25th June (Thurs – Sat each week)
Weekdays: 12:00noon – 6:00pm
Saturday: 10:00 – 1:00pm

This exhibition, which is part of Print Festival Scotland, showcases 5 artists who share a contemporary and diverse approach to printmaking. For this show the artists have taken over the Slipper Baths within The Govanhill Baths, adorning each cubicle with a selection of work that reacts to the space through an array of styles, techniques and materials.

Nicola Massie (b. Aberdeen) currently lives and works in Glasgow specialising in printmaking and sculpture. Since graduating from Painting and Printmaking at The Glasgow School of Art, she has received the Glasgow Print Studio Prize, RGI New Graduate Award and was nominated for the Saatchi New Sensations Prize.

Andreas Behn-Eschenburg (b. Zürich) graduated from Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art (2014), and continues to live and work in Glasgow. Andreas investigates the artist’s agency and deconstructs the traditions of painting into elements that are then reassembled in other media as installations within a space.

Fionnuala McGowan (b. Belfast) is another Glasgow based artist, who explores the boundaries of printmaking through creating sculptural prints. She was a recipient of the Glasgow Print Studio prize (2014), was featured in the summer 2015 edition of Printmaking Today and completed a residency in Frans Masereel Centrum, (Belgium, 2014).

Dickie Webb (b. Oxford) migrates between North and Southern Hemispheres, operating from a nomadic studio and artist residencies – SNEHTA, ACSL, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshops and Chisenhale Art Place. Recent exhibitions include Early Warning – & Model, PNEM, Netherlands, Things Are Different Now – Art Athina and Beyond Tinted – MAMY, Armenia.

David Farrar (b. Oxford) is a Glasgow based artist whose work focuses on the relationship between form and function. He has exhibited internationally, most recently in The National Original Print Exhibition (London) and has attended residencies at Frans Masereel Centrum (Belgium), The Artist House in St. Mary’s College (USA) and VCCA (USA).

 

PNEM – SoundArt Festival Uden, Netherlands 14-15th November.

PNEM Sound Art Festival – Interactive Visual Art

On Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 November 2015, the platform new experimental music the fifth international Pnem Sound Art Festival 2015 with live, video and audio performances by artists from home and abroad. The Pnem Sound Art Festival offers a stage for musicians and artists that are located on the cutting edge of sound, music and new media. The organisers hope through the festival an international platform for the development and implementation of new experimental music and graphic art.

To the public is also an active and participatory role. How’s your food? Take a walk in the woods with as a guide by yourself a soundscape selected or listen to the music via the app. In the context of 10 years klankenbos (be) and 5 YEARS PNEM FESTIVAL (NL) created a soundartist Bart Van Dongen in cooperation with app-Developer Yvan van der sanden an interactive GPS composition for two locations, the looppiste in Lubbock and The old velodrome of Belgian refugees in uden. The listen app gets a permanent nature, in Belgium as part of the world war I and in the Netherlands klankroute a luisterwandeling by the maashorst.

PNEM Sound Art Festival
14.11.15 | 19:30 h till 23:00 H | € 15, buy tickets
15.11.15 | 12:00 h till 17.00 h | FREE
Theater to peak
Pnemstraat 1
5406 xa uden

http://www.besteburen.eu/…/interactieve-klankkunst-op-pnem-…

PNEM Program

Saturday 14 Nov. LIVE
20:00 Official opening of the PNEM Sound Art Festival
20:15 PushPull (DE) – Balgerei 
20:30 Ken Byers (UK) – Movement-Interactive
21:00 The Feedback Gents (DE) – Out Of The Wilds
21:30 Pause
22:00 Renzo Spiteri (MT) – Quintessence
22:30 PushPull (DE) – Balgerei
22:45 End

Sunday 15 Nov. LIVE
12:00 Official opening of PNEM Sound Art Maashorst
13:00 Stichting COM (NL) – Bezette Stad Revisited – theater
13:30 Bart van Dongen (NL) – Workshop – studio
14:00 PushPull (DE) – Balgerei – theater
14:30 Bart van Dongen (NL) – Live performance – studio
15:00 Renzo Spiteri (MT) – Quintessence – theater
15:30 Radio Approxim (NL) – Mother Flockers – studio
16:00 Studium:Stadt (DE) – To see with your ears and… – theater
16:30 End

Interactive installation
12:00-16:00 Lex Raijmakers (NL) – Roots – near the studio
12:00-16:00 Alan Dormer (IE) – Thishearbeast – outdoor theater

VideoWall
• La Cosa Preziosa (IE) – The edge of the world 1’44
• Julian Scordato (IT) – Vision II 7’00
• Dickie Webb (UK) – U DYS HET 7’19
• Matthew Schoen (CA) – Vehicles CA 9″30
• Osvaldo Cibils (IT) – N°1-5 installation on monitor 2’31

PNEM Sound Art Maashorst – WoodWalk Experience 2.0
• Alan Dunn (UK) – The Black Forest 2’30
• Barry O’Halloran (IE) – Triptych 6’22
• Bart van Dongen (NL) – Gelukzoekers, zo noemen ze ons
• David Prescott-Steed (AU) – Miscommunication Solo 9’05
• David Rogers (UK) – Dungeness Tower 3’32
• Katherine Trimble (USA) – We’re Not Gonna Make It 9’03
• Osvaldo Cibils (IT) – Soundart 29 april 2015h 3’30
• Sam Marshall (UK) – Caught In Transmission 6’53
• Sandrine Deumier + Alx P.op (FR) – Mdr_test508 2’38
•Simón Pérez (AR) – Las Cifras y Las Palabras 8’00

Nog enkele kaartjes voor zaterdagavond beschikbaar: https://soundartfestival.wordpress.com/…/…/kaartjes-tickets/

Brutalist Architecture Inspires Simon Terrill’s Foam Playgrounds

We’re familiar with the sight of brutalist towers in Britain, but less well known are the strange playgrounds built at the same time, which are the inspiration for a new installation at the RIBA by the artist Simon Terrill and design collective Assemble. With their rough surfaces and dangerous drops, these surreal concrete structures were very much a product of their time.

• 

  Churchill Gardens estate in Pimlico, London, 1978This playground is on the modernist Churchill Gardens estate designed by Powell and Moya, but clearly built at a later date. Before these postwar playgrounds were built, children would have been playing in the bomb sites left after the war. It’s possible the architects were referencing that in their design.

  All captions by Simon Terrill 

  Photograph: John Donat/RIBA

• 

  Churchill Gardens estate, Pimlico, 1956The flying saucer looks like it has crashed and there’s a mysterious cruise-liner chimney. Brutalist buildings are built out of bush-hammered concrete and the playgrounds are made out of the same material.

  Photograph: John Maltby/RIBA

• 

  Balfron Tower playground, Poplar, London, 2015
  Ernö Goldinger, who built the Balfron Tower, was interested in play and children’s toys. But this playground looks inhospitable. Apparently the slide once had metal on it – now it is just the concrete, so you wouldn’t want to go down it – it would take your skin off.

  Photograph: Simon Terrill/Assemble

• 

  Park Hill estate, Sheffield, 1963Part of the Park Hill estate, designed by Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith, who were tutored by the Smithsons – the founders of new brutalism. The estate was famous for its experimental ideas, like walkways in the sky, and that approach was reflected in the playground.

  Photograph: Arch Press Archive/RIBA

• 

  Park Hill estate, Sheffield, 1962The same shapes appear in brutalist playgrounds around the country: hexagons, ramps, holes in walls. The children would have had a very physical encounter with the concrete – crawling over it, feeling it under their hands, grazing their knees. It’s a very different way to experience brutalism than the way most adults did.

  Photograph: Arch Press Archive/RIBA

• 

  Churchill Gardens estate playground, Pimlico, 1963 These unconventional structures encourage children to take risks, to explore. There is an element of danger which you might not get in soft play areas today.

  Photograph: John Maltby/RIBA

• 

  Assemble and Simon Terrill’s foam playground at the RIBA headquarters, LondonWe talked about using concrete, but it would have been impossible in a museum. And it would have been inappropriate for children to play on. So we used foam, which by coincidence has a very similar speckled look to bush-hammered concrete.

  Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

• 

  Children playing on Assemble and Simon Terrill’s playground at RIBAThe colours are standard issue, and relate to the density of the foam. Pink foam is denser than blue. The brutalist ethos was to expose the function of a building, and honour the truth of your materials. Brutalist playgrounds were a truth to concrete, ours is a truth to foam.

  Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

The Thoughtfulness Of Nonverbal Space – Shin Noguchi

SHIN NOGUCHI

Published on June 5, 2015 on Aint Bad Magazine.

Shin Noguchi is an award winning street photographer based in Kamakura and Tokyo, Japan. He describes his street photography as an attempt to capture extraordinary moments of excitement, beauty and humanism, among the flow of everyday life and has a discreet, poetic and enigmatic approach that is sensitive to the subtleties and complexities of Japanese culture without using posed/staged and no-finder/hip shot. “Street photography always projects the “truth”. The “truth” that I talk about isn’t necessarily that I can see, but they also exist in society, in street, in people’s life. and I always try to capture this reality beyond my own values and viewpoint/perspective.” Today we take a look at Shin’s series titled Nonverbal Space.

“Nonverbal Space”, it is unstable, distorted, and contradicts what we have created. And [Ma], exists in there.

The characteristic of the Japanese [Ma] is very beautiful, also delicate, and if you are not always aware of the very small amount of undulation of [Ma], it loses balance immediately.

I tried to listen to a lump of invisible voice (or the voice that was confined) of [Ma] existing in nonverbal/unstable spaces of our daily lives, and I aimed to visualize the two invisible elements, [Ma] and human [Gou] (karma/conduct) that underlies in [Ma].

Also, in this project, I dared to express the human being as the existence (visualization of [Gou]), not as an individual but by making the whole nonverbal space the subject without including people in the frame. this way, i am managing the awareness of the relationship between individuals, society and the surrounding environment for the viewers.

Danshi Tatekawa said that “Rakugo is an affirmation of human [Gou] (karma/conduct), that is, inconsistency”, and Alexander Pope also said that “To err is human, to forgive divine”.
As they talked towards “people”, could their words really be said in front of the “Nonverbal Space” which is more closer to the “society”? and could that “forgiveness” recreate another type of hope or a new possibility in this land where everything had changed to something that looks irreversible?

I shoot the “Nonverbal Space” (it is unstable, distorted, and something contradicts what we have created) while being aware of their words which were created by human beings as well.

Finally, by expressing the subjective viewpoint of the photographer, this project is, so to speak, an antithesis against the new topographic photographs.

To view more of Shin’s work please visit his website.

The Rock Trust Postcard Art Exhibition and Auction 2015

I have some work up for auction as part of The Rock Trust Postcard Art Exhibition And Auction 2015. This is taking place in Edinburgh from 5th June – 2nd July in the Summerhall . There will be some well know artists alongside artist like myself auctioning off postcard sized artworks. All proceeds go to helping youth rebuild their lives. If you are in Edinburgh you can check out the work in person. For those not in Edinburgh you can see all the works online and still bid on any works you may like.

THERE IS ONLY ONE CATCH AND THAT IS CATCH-22 – Y GALLERY, NYC

THERE IS ONLY ONE CATCH AND THAT IS CATCH-22
A project curated by Blanca de la Torre

May 15th – June 28th, 2015.
Opening Reception: FRIDAY May 15th from 7pm to 10pm.

Y GALLERY is pleased to present “There is Only One Catch and that is Catch 22 ”,a group show curated by Blanca de la Torre at Y Gallery. It will be the first exhibition at Y Gallery’s new space in the Lower East Side in the fifth floor of a historical building located in 319 Grand St. NY 10002.* This exhibition features the work of seventeen international artists, and will be comprised of drawing, photography, video, installation, sculpture and mixed media works by:

Artemio, Greta Alfaro, Alberto Borea, Juanli Carrión, Danilo Correale, Chueca, Leonardo Herrera, Christian Jankowsky, Enrique Jezik, Ximena Labra, Antonio Vega Macotela, Detext (Raúl Martínez), Kate Newby, Alejandra Prieto, Wilfredo Prieto, Avelino Salas and Joaquín Segura

About  “There Is Only One Catch and That Is Catch 22”

Participation in the present moment implies the tacit adherence to a cult of certain contradictions. This is a world of crossed messages, symbolic traffic, and sudden transformations in which it becomes clear that there is no idea of “sense,” beyond that present in the multiple nature of this concept.

This is an exhibition that takes this basic problem as a point of departure. Catch 22 is a logic trap initially suggested by Joseph Heller in his eponymous novel published in 1961. Set during the II World War the novel develops this idea but in close relation to the operating area of ​​military bureaucracy, strict and absurd at the same time. The term later became part of the English vocabulary because of its accuracy to refer to certain unsolvable puzzles in which the only way out is denied by an inherent fact of the problem itself. Furthermore this impossible scenario appeals broadly to current circumstances such as arbitrary political decisions, militarism, and absurd bureaucracies worldwide.

The artists included in this exhibition provide works that connect to different explorations of what is considered a biconditional tautology. The works outline different vanishing points, either referring to military and political connotations of this construct; or to that section of invisibility of certain processes or social situations, as well as the efforts to maintain that invisibility.

On the other hand, the technique chosen by each artist plays a key role in representing this paradox by operating as a dialectical device that allows us to enter the circuit where the intractable political liability inherent to the material sets its own speech and takes us into the eternal dilemma of the concept before or after its formal resolution. Thus, the works venture into a double connection with the Catch-22: the conceptual approach of them, together with the hoop stress and the disorder between the material and the concept represented, which also canceled its value in use and intensifies the fetish of merchandise.

– Blanca de la Torre, 2015

Artists in this exhibition: Alberto Borea, Alejandra Prieto, Antonio Vega Macotela, Artemio, Avelino Sala, Christian Jankowski, Chueca, Danilo Correale, DETEXT, Enrique Ježik, Greta Alfaro, Joaquín Segura, Juanli Carrión, Kate Newby, Leonardo Herrera, Wilfredo Prieto, Ximena Labra

at our NEW SPACE

319 Grand St 5th floor
New York, NY 10002

www.ygallerynewyork.com

We Must Risk Delight: Twenty Artists from Los Angeles

I seem forever drawn to artwork and artists that are based in Los Angeles.  Ever since I was studying art in my final school years I was intrigued to those artists and students working in Los Angeles.  17 years on and I am still thirsty for works created in this city more so that other parts of the world that I have seen or experienced.  Its odd how different places influence works and inform a certain aesthetic or movement in a globalised world.  Check out this article posted on KCET.org  written by Anuradha Vikram about the current exhibition of LA based artists at this years Venice Biennale.

City Among Nations: Los Angeles at the Venice Biennale

Anuradha Vikram

At the far end of a narrow walkway in the Dorsoduro district, alongside one of Venice’s famed canals, there is a series of magazzini small warehouses that face out over the lagoon. Inside the third of these, the intrepid will discover a return to the artistic heyday of the city-state known as “The Most Serene Republic of Venice.” An autonomous democracy governed this region for nearly 1000 years until the establishment of modern Italy at the turn of the 19th century. A haven for arts patronage, the Venetian city-state was a major force in the Italian Renaissance, producing the likes of Tintoretto, Titian, and Veronese. However, the artists in “We Must Risk Delight: Twenty Artists from Los Angeles,” curated by Elizabeta Betinski as an official collateral exhibition of the The 56th Venice Biennale, are not Italians. They are representatives of the contemporary city-state, Los Angeles, a place where the Biennale’s theme, “All the World’s Futures,” can be experienced on a daily basis.

The Propeller Group, The AK-47 vs M16, 2015. AK-47 and M16 bullets fused and encased in ballistic gel, on metal support and LWS platform, 128 x 43 x 17 cm; single-channel HD video, color, no sound, c. 12′. 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, All the World’s Futures. | Photo: Alessandra Chemollo. | Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

What’s notable about “We Must Risk Delight” is precisely that none of the artists included are international luminaries, of which Los Angeles undoubtedly has its share. Rather, the exhibition presents the city’s immeasurably talented working-artists, ranging in age from 30-70 and representing a broad range of ethnicities, as well as a slight majority of female artists. “Our participation in art conversations on an international level can not be reserved only for superstar names: not if our interests as a community are to keep growing and keep relevant,” curator Elizabeta Betinski explains. “Too few of us get the kind of opportunity we just experienced at the Venice Biennale and I truly hope to see that change for Los Angeles artists within my lifetime. ‘We Must Risk Delight’ was created in an effort to affect that change.” The exhibition has been a labor of love for the curator and the artists, who continue to seek financial support for their endeavor. “Democratization is, to me, an issue that needs to be addressed,” says Betinski. “We can either complain about — and thus contend with — the ‘art market’ and its inherent elitism, or we can give effort to expanding the playing field and creating opportunities for more than just a select few.” She continues, “L.A. has one of the most vibrant and exciting contemporary art scenes in the world — yet, our perspective on being a part of a larger world is still very myopic and out-of-sync with the amount of creative talent and diversity L.A. has to offer.” Such diversity, while not the cause of the show’s success, is important because it reflects the progressive values of a city that is increasingly hailed as a crucible for working artists, as well as being notable for its multicultural and gender-balanced community and presence of multiple generations of artists all supporting one another.

Walead Beshty, 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, All the World’s Futures. | Photo: Alessandra Chemollo. | Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia.

Thematically, the exhibition’s focus is transcendence of real-world limitations, and the art on view speaks to the possibilities of fantasy and imagination to lift us above our daily challenges. That utopian spirit is also typical of Los Angeles, a city that is in many ways an impossibility, wrested from the desert that perpetually threatens to reclaim it. The artworks on view take a variety of forms, from Tanya Batura’s surreal ceramics suggesting organic growths made of eyes, to Robbie Conal‘s nostalgic portraits of 1960s pop icons Bob Marley, John Lennon, and Jimi Hendrix. Kenturah Davis’ contribution, four large-scale drawings depicting African-American subjects whose images are comprised of written text describing their aspirations, speaks to both the challenges and the ambitions of L.A.’s creative class.

“We Must Risk Delight: Twenty Artists from Los Angeles.” Collateral Event of the 56th la Biennale di Venezia, Biennale Arte 2015. Curated by Elizabeta Betinski. Presented by bardoLA in collaboration with Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Panorama view of installation with works by (L-R) Ben Jackel, Frank Ryan, Tony de los Reyes, Jamison Carter, Amir H. Fallah, Sherin Gurguis, Alexis Zoto, Carolyn Castaño.

Painting is everywhere, most of it boldly colorful. Amir H. Fallah exhibits two paintings from a recent series in which he reconstructed the lives of a married couple based on diaries and objects procured from an estate sale in East Los Angeles. Alexandra Grant and Sherin Gurguis, two artists currently featured in the COLA award exhibition at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, are represented with exuberant works on paper that dazzle against the brick walls of the magazzini space. Grant shows two works from her “Century of the Self”series, proclaiming “I was born to love not to hate,” and Gurguis contributes intricately patterned cut-paper works that riff on traditional Islamic screen work. Gurguis also contributes a large, ornamental cut-out sculpture alongside sculptural works by Ben Jackel, Margaret Griffith, Rebecca Niederlander, and Jamison Carter. Carole Silverstein, Mark Licari, and Shizu Saldamando also dazzle with color, though on a smaller scale. These three artists each embody a distinct Los Angeles vernacular in their very different bodies of work: Silverstein working with pattern and landscape, Saldamando in figuration to describe local archetypes, and Licari bringing the psychedelic perspective.

“We Must Risk Delight: Twenty Artists from Los Angeles.” Collateral Event of the 56th la Biennale di Venezia, Biennale Arte 2015. Curated by Elizabeta Betinski. Presented by bardoLA in collaboration with Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Works by Kenturah Davis, Carole Silverstein, Margaret Griffith, and Shizu Saldamando.

Despite L.A.’s international stature as a film capital, the moving image is less prominent in the show, although animations by Stas Orlovski and Carolyn Castaño, and Natasha Prosenc Stearns’ sculpture and video installation, ensure it is not left out of the discussion. Photography is also less visible, though well-represented by Brandy Eve Allen’s intimate portraits. Alexis Zoto is the only artist to respond directly to Venice as a site, creating an installation in dazzling gold around a large chandelier that evokes the ersatz Baroque aesthetic of Venice’s many palazzos, while incorporating pre-Columbian geometries that speak to the contemporary hybridization of culture across place.

Charles Gaines, “Notes on Social Justice: Dey’s All Put on De Blue,” (1880), 2013. Each 86.4 x 71.3 cm. Detail. | Courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery.

Reflecting that hybrid reality and the broadest possible scope of geographies, the 2015 Biennale encompasses pavilions from 87 countries as well as 42 collateral exhibitions. Still, no other city occupies a footprint comparable to L.A.’s this time around. In addition to “We Must Risk Delight,” L.A. artists figure prominently in Okwui Enwezor’s main exhibition. The Giardini’s Central Pavilion features legendary Angeleno artist and CalArts faculty mainstay, Charles Gaines, with an installation of his recent “Notes on Social Justice” and plexiglas ‘Librettos’ works (the latter also on view at Leimert Park’s Art + Practice until May 30). The Biennale’s live program – one of three key thematic areas or “filters” – also features monthly live performances of Gaines’ master composition based on five “Notes on Social Justice” texts. The first of these featured a male and female vocalist in duet, accompanied by a string quartet. Future performances over the course of the exhibition will layer and multiply texts and compositions from the five source texts. Both the installation and the live performance use canonical documents from the history of social justice movements as their basis, building on a body of work that has incorporated the words of Susan B. Anthony, Stokely Carmichael, and Malcolm X. By appropriating these texts whole and treating them with visual and auditory lyricism, Gaines defuses the oft-leveled criticism of political art as aggressive or alienating, instead drawing viewers in with beauty and warmth while allowing the eloquence and commitment of the original speakers to come through with clarity.

Charles Gaines, “Notes on Social Justice: Dey’s All Put on De Blue,” (1880), 2013. Each 86.4 x 71.3 cm. Detail. | Courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery.

Adjacent to the Gaines installation is a gallery of recent works by L.A.-based Walead Beshty, whose works include a number of “Aggregate” sculptures (2013) constructed from production discards from Guadalajara’s Cerámica Suro, a long-established industrial ceramics producer and exporter. The sculptures, covered in thick, drippy paint, are as vulgar and chaotic as Cerámica Suro’s wares are precise. These works, accompanied by collaged sculptures made from cut-up Guadalajara tabloid newspapers draped over metal poles, respond to the official and unofficial economies of globalization by foregrounding the commoditization of human bodies and folk cultural traditions for casual consumption by Mexico’s elites and their wealthier neighbors to the north.

Additionally, CalArts graduates Matt Lucero and Tuan Andrew Nguyen are included at the Arsenale with their collective, The Propeller Group, whom Angelenos may remember from their humorous video installation commenting on global corporate culture at 2012’s Made in L.A. Biennial at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. In Venice, they are represented by a block of ballistic gel containing an AK-47 bullet and an M-16 bullet shot at one another, which upon fusing come to represent a merger of American and Soviet military histories in the aftermath of the Cold War — think Afghanistan or Syria for some real-world examples of how this plays out. The AK-47 vs M16 (2015) also includes a slow-motion animation of the bullets passing through the gel, which creates an abstracted forensic map of contemporary global conflict.

Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia. Walead Beshty, “¡La Voz de Jalisco El Periodico Que Dice Lo Que Otros Callan Más Noticias Más Deportes! (Miércoles, 7 Agosto 2013: Metro, La Prensa Jalisco, Express Guadalajara),” 2013. Daily newspapers, dimensions variable.

Another notable Angeleno at the Biennale is Vanessa Beecroft, an Italian-born artist whose installation “phantom limb stone garden” at the Italian Pavilion made up of figurative sculptures in bronze and shades of stone reminiscent of the range of human skin tones. One of her most ambitious and successful sculptural installations, the work cannot be viewed in its entirety as it is intentionally blockaded by large, rough-sided marble slabs. The fragmented viewpoint of the observer and the truncated female bodies within make reference to Marcel Duchamp’s final work, Étant Donnés (1946-66), a Surrealist-inspired tableau referencing both theater and early cinema, which prefigures Beecroft’s more than twenty years of work responding to the tropes of contemporary high fashion.

Los Angeles’ emergence within the international contemporary art landscape speaks to the city’s position at the forefront of worldwide trends. While the Biennale’s pavilions appear to celebrate nationalism, increasingly one finds within them artists from many countries (Spain and Belgium being notable examples this time). Los Angeles exemplifies a future in which metropolitan areas are in direct dialogue with one another, around the globe, through cultural as well as commercial exchange. Comprised of residents from all parts of the planet, Los Angeles boasts a majority-minority demographic that other European and American cities are destined to share. The city is shaped by its national context, but also shapes it, and acts as a hub for international cultural exchange. L.A. is uniquely positioned to serve as a model for the world’s cities going forward, being already invested in seeking ways to develop more equitable, sustainable, and liveable conditions for its citizens. Given how the city’s contemporary artists reflect and promote those concerns, it’s no surprise that they are so prominently represented at a global exhibition focused on the future.

“We Must Risk Delight: Twenty Artists from Los Angeles.” Collateral Event of the 56th la Biennale di Venezia, Biennale Arte 2015. Curated by Elizabeta Betinski. Presented by bardoLA in collaboration with Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. Installation view.

---

Top Image: Walead Beshty, 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, All the World’s Futures. | Photo: Alessandra Chemollo. 

Anuradha Vikram is a curator, critic, educator, and Director of Residency Programs at 18th Street Arts Center.

2 out of 3…

Sometimes my travels coincide with events and exhibitions that I would love to see.  However this year I will be missing both Carsten Höller: Decision and Gustav Metzger: Towards auto-destructive art 1950-62 at Tate Britain from May 11th.  Luckily this weekend before I head south to New Zealand for the winter I will be able to catch Lee Ufan at the Lisson Gallery so one out of three is not bad.

Both artist for me operate on the fringes whilst also are at the centre of what is current.  They both continue to push boundaries within their practice and inspire thoughts within mine.  Hopefully I will get to see these exhibitions elsewhere in the near future.

Carsten Höller: Decision is the artist’s largest survey show in the UK to date.

The exhibition, which sprawls across Hayward Gallery and erupts beyond its roof and walls, explores perception and decision making.

Confronting visitors with a series of choices, it features mirrors, disconcerting doubles and mysterious objects which together create an impression of a world where nothing is quite as it seems.

Born in Belgium to German parents, Höller trained as a scientist – gaining an advanced degree in agricultural entomology – before becoming an artist.

Over the past 20 years Höller has created experiential installations, participatory artworks and immersive environments.

These often feature disorientating architecture and perception-altering devices, which Holler refers to as ‘artificial limbs for parts of your body that you don’t even know you’ve lost’.

Believing that ‘people are often more powerful than artworks’, Holler sees his work as ‘incomplete’ without visitor interaction. Under Höller, Hayward Gallery is transformed into a platform – part laboratory, part playground – dedicated solely to human experience.

Carsten Höller lives and works in Stockholm. His 2006 installation Test Site saw the artist install a series of giant slides in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.

His solo shows include Experience at the New Museum, New York (2011), Carrousel at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2008) and Half Fiction at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2003).

Wednesday 10 June – Sunday 6 September

Opening times
Monday 12 noon – 6pm
Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, 11am – 7pm
Late night Thursday and Friday, 11am – 8pm