Lynn Anne's

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj5G5lpbn0w

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Radicant 143-190

The artworks inside include a giant sculpture of a black Chanel handbag that encases a video. By Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury:

If, Postmasters, New York by Herve Mikaeloff, 1992

PETER: Were you thinking about the idea of the readymade?
SYLVIE: Yes, but the readymade had been done so much already. There was no point in just redoing a readymade. I liked the idea that the work could be completely superficial. There was also the idea of seduction, the idea of brands, names, labels, and all this stuff that was very present in the late ’80s. I also liked that the work was abstract, in that when you looked at the shopping bags, their contents were hidden and you couldn’t quite know what was in them.

Don't do it ! (Readymades of the 20th Century),
John Armleder, 1997-2000, Mixed media

SHADOWS, REFLECTIONS AND ALL THAT SORT OF THING #50, 2010
c-print, Diasec, 125 x 100 cm, ed. 6

'Places are both the topos for a given event but also the sign, the tropos for the recollection of the path to another place and time'.

Nikos Papastergiadis

Sculpture for Traveling, Duchamp, 1918

Original version (as included in The Box in a Valise), 1918

Original Version:

1918, New York
lost
rubber strips cemented together and strung up
readymade?
dimensions vary (flexible construction)

http://www.toutfait.com/unmaking_the_museum/Sculpture%20for%20Travelling.html

This soft sculpture Readymade is made of different colored rubber strips cut from bathing caps. Duchamp cemented these pieces together at random intersections and tied the whole construction up with strings attached to the corners of his studio at 33 West 67th Street, New York. In a letter to Jean Crotti on July 8, 1918, Duchamp described this piece as "a kind of spider's web made up from all the colours" (Ramirez 44).

Sculpture for Traveling embodies the souvenir concept. In 1966, Duchamp called it a type of "voyage sculpture" (Cabanne 59). In fact, it was literally intended for traveling and could be recreated "out of his suitcase at every stop on trip from New York to Buenos Aires in 1918" (Ades 159). Duchamp described this Readymade in the following manner in a 1966 interview:

Original version (photograph), 1918
"1917" date inscribed appears incorrect

"Naturally, they took up a whole room. Generally, they were pieces of rubber shower caps, which I cut up and glued together and which had no special shape. At the end of each piece there were strings that one attached to the four corners of the room. Then, when one came in the room, one couldn't walk around, because of the strings! The length of the strings could be varied; the form was ad libitum. That's what interested me. This game lasted three or four years, but the rubber rotted, and it disappeared" (Cabanne 59-60).

Treatise on Navigation
Under the cultural rain(Althusser, Duchamp, and the use of Artistic Forms) pg 143

Bourriaud says we perceive culture as a product(merchandise), distributed by institutions and businesses--
*we are bombarded with so many visual signs every day-- what to do under this "rain" of influences? pg 143 Althusser's essay "The Underground Current of the Materialism of the Encounter" uses the rain metaphor to describe atomic structure of reality and Bourriaud uses this to support his strategy--Cultural Production as precipitation--
" this rain of cultural objects hollows out crevices and modifies the contours and natural lines of human society. Its total mass is one thing; its individual atoms(that is, this or that particular work) are another).
so each the metaphor continues on with meaning of the work of art has value in itself depending on where its going-- its context

Bourriaud says Althussers philosophy is given through the lens of Marx given through the lens of Hegel-- this makes for an incompatibility with its true nature -- do we also see Duchamps work through a lens that renders our system of thought incompatible with his?

Appropriation and Neo-Liberalism

here we go... can of worms.
Appropriation. pg 145 Archetype ; buzzword of white critics--

Picasso-- recycling approach resurecting history-- "tracing a line" from his art back through history.

Doesn't a work of art, made now, even if it's an exact replica, a reference to a piece already done or a readymade object, say something new because of the artists intention? Even as an homage it still has its own voice because of time and place; because of "cultural rain"?

As Bourriad said on pg 144- " the work of art is a locus with its particular haesseity, its specific and concrete situation...".

**The locus of something is the place where it happens or the most important area or point with which it is associated.
**

Noun

haecceity - the essence that makes something the kind of thing it is and makes it different from any other

quiddity

essence, heart and soul, inwardness, nitty-gritty, pith, substance, gist, kernel, nub, meat, core, sum, marrow, heart, center, centre - the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience; "the gist of the prosecutor's argument"; "the heart and soul of the Republican Party"; "the nub of the story"

I think our relationship to history has a sense of ambiguity that make any creative happening in the now its own force.

Example 1; Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel(1913)
pg 146 "The invention ( I say discovery) of the readymade represents a tipping point in the history of art...with this radical gesture of presenting an everyday object of comsumption as a work of art.." the whole reality of how we perceive what art is was upset...

DUCHAMP didn't use the word appropriation .

1st Point He thinks of notion of choice rather than production-- pg 147-- Duchamp says when you make a painting you choose the colors the canvas the subject-- everything. "There isn't any art; it's a choice.. There (with the readymade) it's the same thing. It's a choice of object.

Bourriaus says, "the act of choosing is by no means equivalent to that of appropriating..." pg 147

Appropriation-- taking object
Readymade-- new meaning to object

2nd point- beauty of indifference
I LOVE this idea-- choosing something without considering whether you like or dislike it--
I am trying to understand how this connects-- Bourriaud talks about Wu Wei-- taoist principle of non-action, and the Buddist idea of impermanence-- I LOVE these concepts and I have a dim lightbulb glowing trying to understand the readymade connection-- READYMADE-- object is of no importance, can be replaced or not-- ok-- non action and impermanence-- a spiritual path the letting life flow-- getting out of the way. Hard to see the connection for me, because I personally want to feel warmth toward what I am making, or why bother. I am missing the point I think.

pg 148 Bourriad says "an indifferent object is not something to be appropriated, on the contrary, in the readymade, Duchamp finds an easthetic formula for dispossession. " ok I hear it but I still don't see it.

3rd Point Idea of Displacement Pg 148 The readymade needs to be displayed for effectiveness. Registered by gallery or camera, ratifying in Duchamp's terms the "absolute contradiction" --readymade belongs to no particular domain.

50 yrs later-- Critic Beuys sees nothing but appropriation in the readymade. he feels by Duchamp signing the urinal it expropriates the labor of the workers who worked in kaolin mines.. Bulldonkey! Intention... Context
in Art & Today, pg 40, "Art resides not in the object itself, but in the meaning we embed in it." I agree!

Example 2 Marcel Duchamp LHOOQ
mustache on the Mona Lisa-- prankster wit-- te he he Pg 149 Bourriaud says aim is to desacralize or trivialize cultural icon-- I like this idea, "breaking the chain of what could be called cultural attachment-- as what Witold Gombrowicz in his Polish Memories describes as "gaping mouths" and "vacant gazes" crowding around that very same Mona Lisa. These people are not apreciating or evaluating; they are obeying a cultural imperative." YES! I say.

The SI-- detournment--a distortment( hijacking, rerouting, misappropiation, derailment) of preexisting aesthetic elements. Debord can not jive with the idea of "citing without quotation marks, without stating the source, and with the aim of deliberately transforming it--" pg 150
SI inagural statement--There can be no situationist painting or music, but only a situationist use of those means" --give me a break please

contemporary detourment-- the logo, acronyms, and slogans

the "Peter Principle"-- we can't conceive of manipulating objects beyond certain limits-- interesting pg 152/3

Interform

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Anish Kapoor ROCKS!!!!

Anish Kapoor, Dismemberment Site I, 2003–09, PVC and steel, 25 × 25 x 84m, installation view, The Farm, Kaipara Bay, New Zealand

flavorwire.com/49064/daily-dose-pick-anish-kapoor AWESOME!!!!!!

Benjamin's Key Points and Postproduction

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Radicant, Pg 79-140

John Bock, Zero Hero, 2003, Mixed media, Variable dimensions

Thomas Hirschhorn, Diorama, 1997, Mixed media, 84 in. x 732 in. x 144 in. (213.36 cm x 1859.28 cm x 365.76 cm)

Jason Rhoades, More Moor Morals and Morass, 1994, Mixed media, Dimensions variable

Gabriel OrozcoSamurai Tree 6H, 2007

Thomas Hirshhorn, Stand-alone, 2007, installation view

Gabriel Orozco, Yielding Stone, 1992

My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, 1991

Pg 79. Space and Time... time being as tangible as a room-- art is now time specific like it had been land specific in the 60's

--a new translation Art now negotiates a new type of space by using a geometry of translation--
TOPOLOGY- math that deals with quality and less with quantity of space

transition/ movement/ forms... What does this mean?
Translation-- PRECARIOUSNESS

AESTHETIC PRECARIOUSNESS AND WANDERING FORMS

precarious- a right of use that can be revoked at any time
we now live in a disposable world
disposable- objects life span is shorter and shorter-- planned obsoleteness, this mirrors the labor market contracts

pg 80 The paradox of fixed, inaccessible govt. whose economy is developing without respect to lived reality

Is this the reason the Art of our time is made with precarious, disposable materials?
POP CULTURE- trends-- now is a continuous blurred line.

Neitzschean question of eternal return-- Are you willing to live for all of eternity the moment you are experiencing fight now? This question asked in Art?-- commitment to values-- no longer is poignant.

Pg 81. Era of commitment is past-- hard to retain anything except proper names/ brands.
*Maybe a been there done that attitude is keeping us from the heart of experience-- Is our modern world/ Globalization responsible for this glossing over?
People try to define the new precariousness
Bauman-- liquid modern society whose driving force is globalized consumerism--
shopping malls-- glorious face
miserable underside is flea markets and slums

in 90's liquid modernism became reality--
themes of consumption and communication from 80's fell into background w/ economic crisis

the flea market aesthetic was perfect transition into the 90's
--precarious against solid, flea market against shopping malls, ephemeral performance against steel and resin.

*How does the Artistic consciousness come about? How do many artists start expressing/ making work about the same issues? -- it reminds me of how all the trees bud at the same time in the spring.

*Why does this change now in the 21st Century?
Pg 82 oppositions are less marked-- all forms coexist peacefully-- "Artistic production no longer seems to be organized by that pendulum swing between solid and precarious that continued to echo the alteration of classical and baroque-

Pg 83 Wolfflin says " a fundamental principle of art history-- such fundamental principles can only operate in a radical world-- or a world that retains a memory that radicality..."

IN POSTMODERN UNIVERSE, everything is equivalent-- in RADICAL UNIVERSE, principles mingle and multiply by means of combinations.

DuTranchant-- cutting Edge

Ctr + S Universe -- we are a society with automatic backup.. arching widespread and systematic.

-- Art Institutions are like archiving
-- Modernist Moment-- visible brushstroke end of 19th century.

Art Povera response to consumerist optimism-- American Pop ART

pg 86/87 Jason Rhoades 1993 Installation

Precarious Aesthetic-- clutter, poor materials, saturation-- rejection of any fixed composition principle in favor of nomadic indeterminate installations

Rhoades and Tiraranija-- work by hollowing out, scraping away-- no such thing as a blank canvas-- Chaos is preexisting

in 1991- My Bloody Valentine expressed this aesthetic tendency-- the melody emerged by a series of subtractions--

--precarious pervades entirety of Contemporary Aesthetic!

KOONS, HIRST AND CATTELAN
PG 90. CONTEMPORARY PRECARIOUSNESS AND RENDER IT MONUMENTAL

URBAN WANDERING
Artists make tons of work about life in cities
pg92. when historians look back to art from our era they will see that artists "were fascinated by the transformation of their immediate environment and the 'becoming world'(devenir-monde) of their cities."

compare our now with 2nd half of the 19th century-- Manet, Monet, Saurat painted the birth of industrial civilization, urban life and outskirts of cities

Impressionists painting Parisan Cafes are similar to poost industrial landscapes of Andread Gursky, Struth, Streuli and Wall-- going beyond comtemporary photography-- define all contemporary artists by reference to Baudelairean maxim 'to distill the eternal from the transitory" omniprescence of precariousness in contemporary art pushes it back to the sources of modernity

Pg 92. * Artist Mutant* Baudelaire attempts to sketch profile...

Orozco, Hirshhorn, Alys, Rhoades-- many contemporary artists wouls embrace this definition of Baudelairean modernity indexed t o the urban, wandering and precariousness..

Is this Bourriaud's projection only? Do artists really think through/ strategise about the ideas/ideals that theorists and philosophers project?

Pg. 93 Erre-- something like momentum-- Lacan--"The momentum something has when what was formerly propelling it stops." Bourriaud says that many people believed the postmodernist movement stopped at the end of the 70's and this allowed for movement in any direction--
"The erre would then be what remains of the forward motion initiated by modernism, the field tha is open to our own modernity, our altermodernity"
ex. Orozco's Yielding Stone, 1992 and Samurai Tree begun in 2005

Pg 94 Walter Benjamin-- artworks aura "unique phenomenon of distance" describes its progressive disappearance in spatial terms-- "the space of human life is undergoing a metamorphosis-- the distance between things and living beings is diminishing" the crowds of city make sense of community difficult -- "contemporary megacity...set in motion by the artists of today, is an effect of a political erre-- giving way to urban chaos."
*--Bourriaud says that true borders are now internal, bringing a subtle form of segregation between social and ethnic classes in the city itself-- then how can and artist truly be a radicant artist- moving freely without exclusion of the other?

John Miller --Middle of the Day photographs of the pause in the workday-- AWESOME!
-- also subjectt of Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte --
pg 95 Bourraid says John Miller depicts Seurat's Sunday Afternoon enlarged to planetary dimensions and confined to the legal hours of flanerie... cool.

How many times does Bourriaud use the word precarious in this reading?

pg 100/ 101 Benjamin links loss of aura to to mechanical techniques for capturing images to the emergence of the cinematographer as a model of control--

Hegal saw history as a single path --image reference ins a highway... 102 new figure of artist is semionaut:a creator of paths in a lanscape of signs

The journeyform 2 Topology: pg 113 the journey has become a form in its own right-- rplacing "ad-like frontality of Pop Art and the documetary enumeration of Conceptual art"

Pg 114 The form of the work expresses a path, a journey, more than a fixed space or time
-- ex. Pierre Huyghe, Liam Gillick, Kelley Alys and Dean--

How does one learn topology, a branch of geometry and and use it to make art as described by Bourriad as messing with the "spatio-temporal dispersion of their elements"? How is this a commom characteristic in work by Hirschhorn, Rhoades, Tirvanija, and Bock?

Does one percieve the "unfurling of a flow" in their work? I think so.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Radicant, 11-77

Alexander Rodchenko's Pure Red Colour, Pure Yellow Colour, Pure Blue Colour, 1921

Duchamp Bottle Rack 1914

Francis Alÿs in collaboration with Cuauhtemoc Medina and Rafael Ortega
When Faith Moves Mountains,2000-2002

TH.2058 The Unilever Series: Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, 2008
The Turbine Hall
Tate Modern, London

Gonzalez- Forester, Park. A Plan for Escape, 2002

Gauguin, Paul Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897

What's Bourriad's stradegy in this chapter?

Deconstruction

Postmodernism is the antithesis for Altermodernism--Bourriaud says " Postmodern thought thus arises as the negation of those powers of decentering, of setting in motion, of unsticking, of de-incrustation; powers that are the foundation of the emerging culture that I term here altermodern."

A Dialog of Action , a dialog of verbal experience. Boundaries of ways to talk about art.

YOU let the OTHER be-- a binary division from Postmodernism to Modernism
You can't let others be because you are submersed.

Modernism-- a thing of the past Bourriaud says--

Modernism is subject over form-- neglecting content where Postmodernism has a relative attitude... it's still Modernist-- it didn't take care of content. Modified-- exhaulted multiculturalism but not knowing why. There is a difference for the sake of difference. The difference edified in critique.
--We discover a new authentic but let's let it be-- keep it undeveloped...

Strategic multiculturalism-- extreme Postmodernity-- so relative doesn't allow for cultural exchange because your from there and I'm from here...

Subaltern studies

Homi Bhabha looks at history not from post colonialism POV but from subaltern POV - from wikipedia-- Homi Bhabha, a key thinker within postcolonial thought, emphasizes the importance of social power relations in his working definition of 'subaltern' groups as oppressed, minority groups whose presence was crucial to the self-definition of the majority group: subaltern social groups were also in a position to subvert the authority of those who had hegemonic power

Post modernism serves Poststructuralism
Dissolusion of Postmodernity --swalow everything- not good.

pg 27 need to open an aesthetic and intellectual region in which contemporary works might be judged according to the same criteria-- a space for discussion
-- a state of Translation where communication can occur

Modernism--sublime as final goal Postmodern- center of origins
strategies separation--

Altermodern- swimming in the same sea-- destination takes us into the future

Absence of modern Ideology created more room for religous Ideology.. space needed to oppose thoughts

in new modernity culture-- infinite texture of the world culture-- defining territory for action.

The Nomadic-- part of globalization-- trying to create a translation.

Modern and Postmodern-- Binary Phenomena Ebracing vs Dividing approach

PM has own singularity-- refused to choose between defending or judging

ontalogical fragility-- when theory falls apart.

PoMo approach to multiculturalism is oppressive

PM & M similar because the dynamic has not moved away from the European

construct plan creates new cultural connections-- origins rather than intercultural

WHERE ARE WE GOING INSTEAD OF WHERE ARE WE COMING FROM

RADICALS AND RADICANTS

defining what identity is. The status and potential of being a radical tool.

bottom pg 44 perpetual return to the origin implies that in a radical system of art the new becomes an aesthetic criterion in it's own right. ... Paradoxically, this founding father gesture also formulates a possible end of art. An end and a beginning at the same time, the radical artwork constitutes an epiphany of the present. see footnote 28 on pg 45 for more insight...

Guy Debord-SI movement ended on his orders in 1972-- What is our sense of authenticity
Problem with society of spectacle People were blinded and did not want to see anything

Modernism is very onesided
connect, truth paradigm Radicant doesn't do that
Du Champ
Modernism rejected identity
Postmodernity- superficially adopting-- dealing with logistics
Radicantity is not so superficial

pg 64 " Paul Gaugin did not exploit the cultural context in which he settled, he translated it.

in WHERE DO WE COME FROM? WHAT ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE GOING? he doesn't import indigenous motifs into a western painting hetries to treat pictorially his encounter with Polynesian territory.-- "