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Artforum

October 2006 in Artforum

Artforum
350 Seventh Ave, 19th Floor
New York, New York 10001
t: 212.475-4000 f: 212.529-1257

http://www.Artforum.com

October 2006 in Artforum

This month in Artforum: “Painters’ Paintings: Brice Marden and Chris Ofili in Conversation.” In anticipation of Marden’s career retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the artist talks with Chris Ofili about “old-fashioned” painting, abstraction versus figuration, and how an artist knows when a work is finished.

“For me, abstraction is the real way of the twentieth century because you’re not leading the viewer too much. One of the great things about abstract art is that it allows the viewer a different kind of experience looking at a picture than, say, The Marriage at Cana.”–Brice Marden

“I’ve always felt like you begin one of your paintings by taking an empty bag, and then you shake this bag and nothing comes out, and then you shake it again and nothing comes out, and you continue to shake this bag. And then you start painting with what falls, and there’s nothing there. And it’s like, Why are you shaking the bag?”–Chris Ofili

Also in October: “Out of Beirut.” Mere days before the close of Modern Art Oxford’s exhibition celebrating the vibrant art scene in Beirut, armed conflict broke out between Hezbollah militants and the Israeli army. Art historian and critic T. J. Demos considers the exhibition against this catastrophic cultural backdrop, while four artists and one of the curators involved in the show–Bernard Khoury, Lamia Joreige, Walid Raad, Walid Sadek, and Christine Tohme–describe the war’s effects on their artistic perspectives and practices.

“You have heard of Beirut as the wonderful tourist destination; the prosperous financial hub for banking; the revolutionary city for some intellectuals of the ’70s; the city of complicated wars, of hostages and terrorism; and maybe you have also heard about its refugees and the displaced. There are too many stories and none of them simple.” –Bernard Khoury

Also: Stan Douglas about his latest video, Klatsassin, in which the artist refashions Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon as a western steeped in the history of nineteenth-century British Columbia–when gold-diggers clashed with what they considered a native insurgency. An abridged version will be screened this month at the Vancouver International Film Festival, and the complete work will debut at the Vienna Secession in November.

“In Klatsassin, I don’t think any two characters are the same nationality or speak the same language. They’re all from different places, scrambling to get their gold. It reminded me of today–people from the US and Europe trying to get the most valuable thing in the world out of the earth in a place where they’re not really welcome.” –Stan Douglas

And: Linda Norden, Richard Jackson, Paul McCarthy, and Daniel Birnbaum remember Jason Rhoades and his perfect world; Barry Schwabsky enjoys the “ecstasy of expressionlessness” in Keren Cytter’s videos; Nico Israel introduces a portfolio of photographs by Yto Barrada; Robert Storr travels to Dak’Art 2006, the seventh installment of the Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art; Gary Indiana considers the violence of ordinary people in the films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa; Nancy J. Troy pays tribute to the Société Anonyme and its odd-couple founders, Katherine S. Dreier and Marcel Duchamp; James Meyer visits Okwui Enwezor’s “Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography” at the International Center of Photography and finds a new ethics of representation; Yve-Alain Bois sheds light on Bataille’s war against civilization in “Undercover Surrealism” at the Hayward Gallery, London; and Aleksandra Mir lists her Top Ten.

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PARKETT vol. 77

PARKETT vol. 77:
Trisha Donnelly, Carsten Höller,
and Rudolf Stingel

http://www.parkettart.com

Parkett’s unparalleled explorations and investigations of important international contemporary artists by acclaimed writers and critics continue in vol. 77, featuring Trisha Donnelly, Carsten Höller, and Rudolf Stingel.

At a recent opening, Trisha Donnelly led a small crowd of spectators around the corner to another gallery where she reportedly fired off a cannon to, in her own words, “start time again”— a surprise gesture, witnessed by only a few, designed to spread like folklore. But Donnelly also produces discrete works meant to be seen, not just gossiped about. Her videos, sound pieces, photographs, and pencil drawings possess a cunning precision, a blend of whimsy and restraint. And with preternatural gamesmanship, Donnelly demands much intellectual rigor form her viewers. Texts by Laura Hoptman, Bruce Hainley, and Beatrix Ruf explore Donnelly’s work form disparate perspectives.

By disabling our common sense, Carsten Höller aims to undermine our views of the world. Chantal Mouffe asks, “Can artistic practices still play a critical role in advanced industrial societies?” Of all artists working today, Höller seems intent on asking, if not affirmatively answering, this question, for prior to becoming an artist, he was a scientist (specializing in insect communication). Many of Höller’s works literally function as laboratory experiments: optical devices, flying machines, flashing lights, happiness pills—all jury rigged crack-pot inventions of one kind or another. Höller, according to Jennifer Allen in the pages of this issue, creates “body invaders that latch onto the user’s senses.” Vol. 77 features texts on Höller written by Jessica Morgan, Jennifer Allen, and Chantal Mouffe.

In Rudolf Stingel’s latest photo-realistic self-portraits (painted in black and white and in oil), Cay Sophie Rabinowitz observes a man pondering, “Who am I…after all that I have produced and at this stage in my life?” In these somber tonal meditations, clearly a break from the artist’s past works, “the only activity,” as Stingel humbly confesses,” is self-doubt.” On a different track, writer Francesco Bonami focuses on Stingel’s serial, silver, generic–seeming paintings, which he strategically considers in relation to an earlier corresponding “how-to” manual. Stingel, so Bonami beautifully asserts, understands “the true nature of the idea of a cottage painting: the ambush of aura over the artificiality of the picturesque.” Francesco Bonami, Jörg Heiser, and Cay Sophie Rabinowitz have each contributed articles on Stingel’s diverse repertoire for vol. 77.

In addition: Christian Rattemeyer writes on Christopher Williams; Claudia Spinelli on Erik Steinbrecher; Christoph Bignens on Zurich’s famous night club from the 30s, Corso-Dancing; Sergio Risaliti writes on Grazia Toderi; Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith on Gerard Byrne; plus US and Europe Cumulus texts by Ali Subotnick and Tirdad Zolghadr. The Insert for vol.77 was done by Beth Coleman and Howard Goldkrand; the spine, by Joo Jeong-A.

For more details on the new Parkett, its content and artist editions, as well as for subscriptions and back issues, please go to http://www.parkettart.com . The three new artists’ editions by Trisha Donnelly, Carsten Höller, and Rudolf Stingel are also presented online.

For more information go to: http://www.parkettart.com

EXTRA CITY Center for Contemporary Art

EXTRA CITY Center for Contemporary Art

MORE STORIES ON ABSENCE
a project by Krist Gruijthuijsen

6/10 – 10/12/2005
Opening 5/10/2006 - location 2 - 20.00h

http://www.extracity.org

They say any artist who pays six dollars may exhibit. Mr Richard Mutt sent in a fountain. Without discussion, this object disappeared and was never exhibited. What were the grounds for refusing Mr Mutt’s fountain? Some contended it was immoral, vulgar. Others, that it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing. In 1920 a woman enters annals of art calling herself Rose Sélavy and in 1921, she acquires an extra ‘r’ when she adds her signature to L’Oeil cacodylate, a painting by Francis Picabia.

Escaping identity can be seen as a possibility to distance oneself from its personal environment and to be able to question the position it is functioning in. This position can be read from a social and political perspective. As in the case of Duchamp, alter egos create a good opportunity to play with ones own identity. Fed by resistance and radicalism, they develop a certain freedom to provoke situations that are normally more difficult to create. Once revealed, this ‘fake’ identity dies and is being replaced by forms of mythology such as storytelling and legends. The truth does not matter anymore. The myth creates a discourse of new possibilities in which immortal existence, of an identity such as the alter ego, is much stronger than the one we proceed to believe as real. Disappearing from a context is a very romantic gesture of refusal, which in the end will be embraced by the mass. The mystification brings notions nostalgia and can be read as a form of masturbating your o
wn presence, or rather, your absence. The attraction to the post-mortal existence is an ultimate form of romanticism. Is there a true difference between the failure and revealing of the fictional identity and the death of the non-fictional one?

In More stories on absence, this perspective is being investigated in relation to different forms of death of the persona. Related case studies will be displayed as forms of mystification and mythology in the context of today’s environment linked to its historical aspects. Cases and works such as those from Alan Abel, Andy Kaufman, John Fare, Chris Burden, Ray Johnson, Bas Jan Ader, Jiri Kovanda, Bik Van der Pol, Andy Warhol and JT LeRoy will be discussed as forms of disappearance in relation to mortal and post-mortal theories.

Contributions in the publication by Mario Garcia Torres, Raimundas Malasauskas and Bill Wilson.

Exbibition at Extra City Location 2:
Wolstraat 29, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium

MOVIE SCREENINGS

Abel raises Cain
(2005, 82′) documentary by Jenny Abel and Jeff Hocket

Rare Clips
A selection of rare footage from and with Andy Kaufman.

I’m from Hollywood
(1989, 60′) documentary by Lynne Margulies and Joe Orr.

The heart is deceitful above all things
(2004, 97′) drama by Asia Argento, based on short stories by J.T. LeRoy.

Movie screenings at Extra City Location 1:
Mexicostraat, Kattendijkdok Kaai 20A, 2030 Antwerp, Belgium

+32-484-42.10.70 | info@extracity.org | http://www.extracity.org

Extra City benefits the support of: Ministerie van Cultuur, Jeugd, Sport en Brussel, Stad Antwerpen, Gemeentelijk Havenbedrijf Antwerpen, Klara.
In collaboration with Air.

For more information go to: http://www.extracity.org