Berlin, Reflections on the presentation of Boris Groys: After the Red Square.

Boris Groys: After the Red Square @unitednationsplaza* October 30 through November 10, 2006

[The contemporary, post-communist situation is mostly understood as a time after the full and final victory of the market over all the attempts to put this rule into question. Accordingly, art is equated to the art market and an individual artwork is seen primarily as a commodity. Under this regime the only way for art to become “serious” is to become “critical”, which means that it tries to reflect explicitly on its own character – as – commodity. It is telling that the art of the former Communist or Socialist countries is regarded from this perspective as non-serious because it is non-critical by definition;  this art could not reflect on itself as a commodity because it was not a commodity. (It was not a commodity because there was no market, and certainly no art market under Socialism.)

But the equation between art and art market, be it critical or not, not only brings about the erasure of a substantial part of the art heritage of the 20th Century; it also – and this is the more important point – ignores the non – market dimensions of contemporary art that functions not only as commodity but also as propaganda (for example: Islamist videos), as a means to organize a new type of communal space and a new type of community itself.

The goal of the seminar is to investigate precisely these non-market aspects of contemporary art in its relationship to the long tradition of non-market uses of art, related initially to the Socialist-Communist tradition.]

Quoted from http://neme.org/main/512/unitednationsplaza

The intellectual life here in Berlin has been invigorated by a few artist lectures. Frustrating though has been the aimless, verbal wandering, some of these talks have taken, across themes that sometimes led no where, but I did enjoy the ride as it passed though some interesting concepts, shared below.

The speaker was Russian artist, Boris Groys who addresses the role of religion since the enlightenment,through Communism and now once again transformed in the post Cold War era.  He pointed to the fact that religion had been relieved of its duty to organize societies, a role it played in medieval Europe, by the advent of the French revolution, the model of Napoleon’s strong central governmental framework, and the decline of the nobility.  It then found its mandate in bringing value to the personal life, in attending to the questions regarding meaning in life and death.

Socialist society staked a claim to the interests of the individual, as a member of the group or community and because of that saw no other purpose in death other than as a sort of sacrifice toward the goal of making way for the future generations or as a contribution to the communal common cause.

Capitalism, Groys pointed out, ignores death entirely, choosing to avoid the topic, as it is only the pleasures, and consumption of the individual, which give meaning or profit.  Death in a capitalist context is totally cast off to the church. This I found, although really nothing new, interesting to reflect upon. The thread was lost a bit, but then found its way into the idea that a common currency of the contemporary world is the erosion of the concept of truth.

This also was not new to me, in that I had recently read several commentaries from the realm of particle physics and more general science, that bemoaned the damage caused by the erosion of  the concept of empirical truth.   This due to the contested study of complex systems, most visibly in the environmental sciences and the advent of string theory, where the simple fact that the science conceptualized phenomenon residing in dimensions and scales beyond the reach of empirical analysis, found itself immune from forces, which would require it to have to submit to hypothetical proof.

These realities combined with a political landscape, where the world’s most important leaders and their governments can, and do openly lie as part of domestic and foreign policy have created a world where there exists an idea that there is no truth. The beliefs of the Left, when politically advantageous, become the beliefs of the Right, and visa versa. Truth is then only a crutch, like the church, which has be deemed in itself counterfeit and open to attack.  The ultimate result is a zero sum of belief in truth; one man’s truth is another man’s lies.  After all history itself, which is suppose to document ‘how things really were’ has been shown to be only the ‘truth’ of the victor, or the oppressor or the majority.

The question then becomes:  What role does art then play?   What role does religion then play? A comment was made that most contemporary art in the realm of the marketplace becomes opinion less.  A statement which I think is to a large part true, but there are certainly strong examples to the contrary, the work of William Kentridge accounting for one, or that of Hans Haacke as another.

Western Religion, according to the stream of thought presented, moves itself into being capable of subsuming all opinions, accommodating all as equal and therefore equally negating all.  The believer then looses his or her own ability to formulate an opinion, as ‘true faith’ must stand above opinion and it is then only the opinion of the church itself, or its pastor which is allowed currency.  (This I do find to be relevant, when reflecting upon that part of my family who are ‘born again’).   I ask anyway, where did all this good thought go? I am not certain. It seemed to peter out somewhere.

Good questions were asked though, as someone pointed out that the acts of 911 seemed to point to a very strong, and deadly counter current in the opposite directions of these trends, a counter current which insists on a specific truth and an insistent reproduction of a past anti-technological golden age, which breaks with the current.   The clash of the 21st century then being the result of the currents of these two diametrically opposed forces.  What about art?  Where does it stand, what does it say?  To be honest those questions were dropped or lost in the conversation.  It was suggested that art could be contradictory, and that this was not a bad thing, but then again how does it manage not falling into the same troubles as with contradictory science?

I contend that art in itself, regardless of its message or stand, has unfortunately been used by outside forces in ways which undermine the cohesion of society, and in fact the well being of the artist themselves;  one example, the role of the arts in driving the forces of gentrification,  playing as its spear point. Therefore even the identity of one as an artist has a corrosive impact.  Better off the pre-historic model, the role of the artist in the ‘primitive’ societies where ‘art’ was undertaken by all and the art existed as part of the communal environment, sort of like the background noise.

I could go on, but will leave the thought there. Anyway it has been good to be in an environment here where these ideas are discussed as opposed to strategies for gaining a market foothold or just staying alive as an artist which unfortunately is the premise of most dialogue in NYC.

*unitednationsplaza is a project started by Anton Vidokle following the cancellation of Manifesta 6. Unitednationsplaza is exhibition as school.

Structured as a seminar/residency program in the city of Berlin (2006–2007), it involved collaboration with more then 100 artists, writers, theorists and a wide range of audiences for a period of one year. In the tradition of Free Universities, all of its events were free and open to all those interested to take part. Unitednationsplaza was organized in collaboration with Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Martha Rosler, Walid Raad, Jalal Toufic, Nikolaus Hirsch, Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Tirdad Zolghadr.

While its program in Berlin is now finished, the project is traveling to venues in other cities around the world. (Text taken from their web site: www.unitednationsplaza.org)

House of Imagination at Torstrasse 166, Berlin

House of Imagination at Torstrasse 166, a review by Ron Rocco

Photos by © Max Merz unless otherwise noted.

 

 

September 27 through October, 12, 2008

 

One of Berlin’s truly exceptional assets is the availability of unutilized architecture. Empty buildings, some which contain extraordinary industrial spaces, can be found all over the city. It is this fact that plays a large role in the scope and scale of the exhibitions which can be realized here. One such building is Torstrasse 166 a site which presently accommodates an exhibition which reflect, on the subject of architecture and the meaning of personal spaces.

Das Haus der Vorstellung /House of Imagination-Concepts at Torstrasse 166 on exhibit from Sept. 27 through October 12, is a grass roots presentation staged by curators Ralf Schmerberg, Jaana Prüss and Peter Weber under the name of .triggerhappyproductions, http://www.triggerhappyproductions.com, and funded by the building materials supplier Hornbach. It showcases a collection of artists working in Berlin whose work re-defines or re-conceptualizes interior and exterior spaces.  The exhibition opens to the street, with a cascade of shoes, which spring from the top of the building from red threads to be fixed to the exterior wall at some point below, the work of Chiharu Shiota. 

 

Chiharu Shiota

Chiharu Shiota

The overall effect is a waterfall of color, which distorts the cityscape, presenting a vertical walking surface high above the viewer.

The transformations do not stop with Shiota’s exterior. Inside the building Shiota weaves a dense web of black yarn into one of the apartments.  The viewer has access to this space through ‘tunnels’ which penetrate the all encompassing web.  Inside the rooms assorted furnishing, a desk with scattered papers and books, table and chairs, are seen enmeshed within the artists weaving. In one room a white silken wedding gown stands suspended in the black strands. Is this a reflection on the ‘golden moments’ once shared by this apartments inhabitants? Is it a commentary on purity, or the fleeting nature of memory? The artist leaves us to reflect on these possibilities.

Another re-conceptualized interior, an installation by Raumlaborberlin an artist group with core members Markus Bader, Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, Andrea Hofmann, Jan Liesegang, and Matthias Rick, entitled Im Labyrinth der Musterwohnungen, /The labyrinth of the archetypical apartment, is composed

 

Chiharu Shiota

 

 

Chiharu Shiota Unter die Haut und nicht mehr aus dem Kopf /Under the skin and not any more from the head

 of passageways that  are narrowed, with doors and walls that are projected from familiar configurations to re-define a space like an obstacle course. Walls must be climbed over and passageways shimmied through.  Although architectural drawings adorn some of the wall surfaces, the significance of this work is the redefinition of room function, is a doorway meant as a passageway or simply a visual portal or aperture? Can a wall be climbed over, as opposed to walked around?

Mosermeyer

 

 

At another apartment, the artist Mosermeyer presents, Relaxen mit Ruhestorung /Relax in disturbance.  This is a totally darkened space, which must be navigated by touch. The visitor moves along a black fabric wall, which guides one past hidden furnishings, a couch, an unseen cupboard to be eventually surrounded by darkness and sound.  The crescendo of noise which fills the room breaks only to leave one feeling helpless in the sudden emptiness.  The artist thus underlines our dependence on sight and electricity, speaking to our inherent fears and the sometimes threatening world of the blind.

Künstlergruppe Plastique Fantastique, Marco Canevacci, Markus Wüste

 

 

 

The transformation of physical space itself reaches a crescendo in the work of Künstlergruppe Plastique Fantastique, Marco Canevacci, Markus Wüste.  An exterior courtyard between two wings of the building is filled with a huge pneumatic sculpture.  From its lowest surface one sees only a distorted image of the sky and the surrounding walls.  Every window of the building along the courtyard open onto the inflatable’s plastic surface, producing a feeling of suffocation.  The structure deadens all sound except that which the artists pump into the court yard below, increasing the sense of insulation. 

 

 

Künstlergruppe Plastique Fantastique, Marco Canevacci, Markus Wüste

 

 

 

A second installation by this group fills an adjacent room inside the building.  This white opaque inflatable protrudes from floor and ceiling creating a womb-like surface into which the visitor can crawl, conscious that if one were to slide down to the side walls it might be hard to extricate oneself.  The multi nuanced installation mimics organic forms, challenge the viewer with their scale and explore the place between fun and fear.

 

Other artists featured at at Torstrasse 166 include: Souzie Haas, Sissel Toolas, Manfred Reuter, Laura Kikauka, Franz Hoefner, Harry Sachs, Christine Rebet, Harald Smykla, and (e.) Twin Gabriel.

 

Künstlergruppe Plastique Fantastique, Marco Canevacci, Markus Wüste

Ron Rocco, views: Berlin /New York

Babel Embassy – Concerts / Berlin

Samstag, Mai 17, 2008 

Babel Embassy – Concerts / Berlin, May 2008  For those folks who have had the good fortune to be in town over the past few weeks there have been several occasions to experience something new and powerful from the Berlin music scene, Babel Embassy. This Berlin based band / dance theatre, has been busy on the stage at Werkstatt der Kulturen, MyFest and Karneval der Kulturen’s – Baazar Oriental Bühne, closing a month of prolific activity with Friday evening’s performance at Arcanoa’s here in Kreuzberg.  If you were lucky enough to be there Friday night you were witness to Babel Embassy’s raw, savage power. Lead singer and performance artist, Mathias Brozio (Broziom) captures his audience, employing a throbbing guitar rhythm provided by Marcin Dworski and an intense performance of anguish and redemption, often accompanied by Eva Blaschke’s captivating choreography. Friday night, at Arcanoa accompanied only by Dworski’s guitar and the carpet of sound that is Babel Embassy’s hallmark, Broziom wove an intense drama with his droning vocals and gestations. The effect was to be transformed. Broziom as a performer takes his audience with him on excursions to foreign lands, where even those things one thought one knew seem strange and alien. It is an excursion that brings us to the realization of what it means to be foreign, to be an outsider. In a moment of raw genius, Broziom grabbed a chair from the audience and working it on stage transforms it’s ribbed back into a prison cell, the bars of which he peers through to his audience. Certainly a metaphor for the unfriendly welcome, all too often afforded foreign visitors in these xenophobic times. Babel Embassy’s performance on stage is charged dynamite, packed with political and social content, in a discourse without words, with only babble. Berlin based Broziom (vocals, saz, and dance) started his first band, Alice Brennen playing Saz – a Turkish string instrument – in 1988 with guitarist Douglas Henderson, and Bodhran Player Noël O’Callaghan from Cork, Ireland. With their Turkish-Irish-speedfolk this band was one of the first to explore the boundary between oriental and occidental cultures in terms of rock, punk and folk music. His next project with Douglas Henderson Jakata Omelette (1999), was an electronic duo, which put multimedia aspects to the intercultural discourse. In 2005 Broziom founded Babel Embassy with exceptional Polish guitarist Marcin Dworski, who played before in bands such as SEK, Antiprogress and Be Hungry. Babel Embassy with their – Ethnotronic Dadawave – performances provides an eruption of sound guaranteed to rock you speakers. Broziom sings in fantasy lyrics he describes as dada speak, although it sometimes sounds like segments of real languages. On stage he and dancer, Eva Blaschke present a performance influenced by Laban and Butho techniques, accompanied by guitarist Marcin Dworski’s electronic beat. In his own words, “Babel Embassy is the sound life: Absurd, funny, and sometimes dark, a danceable pageant!” In these times of chauvinism and racial intolerance, Babel Embassy breaks through the culture barriers, with a power seldom seen on a Berlin stage. Just when you think you have heard it all Babel Embassy will give you something new to hear and to experience, like a trip to the steppes of Central Asia, say Kazakhstan, Babel Embassy is an experience to encounter, a trip never forgotten. You can view Babel Embassy performance schedule at: www.myspace.com/babelembassy  Ron Rocco

From Opposite Sides: and everything in Between /Reflections on the Münster Sculpture Project 2007 et al

From Opposite Sides: and everything in Between
/Reflections on the Münster Sculpture Project 2007 et al   by Kimberly Marrero and Ron Rocco
The art one finds at the Münster Sculpture Project today, which was co-curated by Brigitte Franzen, Kasper Konig, and Carina Plath, is it seems of a more modest stature than that which has appeared in some of the Projects earlier exhibitions. These newer, more modest works carry a larger political, and social payload. Raising the question, is a bigger, grander installation really better?

The story goes that when George Rickey placed his kinetic sculpture in the city of Münster in mid 1970 there was a significant outcry from the city’s citizens.  To address this dissatisfaction and to attempt to bridge understanding about art in public places Klaus Bussmann, Project Münster’s founder, in 1977 undertook a series of lectures and presentations at the Westfälisches Landesmuseum in Münster, to address the concerns of the populace.  Thus was born the Münster Sculpture Project.  Although protests of the project followed in latter years the citizens of Münster eventually came to embrace the project, and are found today to be quite proud of it, celebrating its presence in the city, as well as understanding the economical benefit it brings to this rather sleepy college town. Thus the George Rickey sparked a transformation in this city.

So what one learns quickly from the art, and the Archive of the Münster Sculpture Project, on display at the museum, is that the artists and their work does have a formative power on the city.

One example, Thomas Schütte’s Kirschensaüle ‘Cherry Column’, the color of which reflected the popular color of auto paint at the time, was constructed in 1987 overlooking a parking lot full of cars, garbage receptacles, bikes and bike racks.  Over time city officials, noting the number of tourist and other visitors who were searching out the Cherries, thought they should clean up the site to help improve the city’s image.  Thus today Schütte’s Cherries can be found on a sanitized public square, the HarseWinkelplatz, a standard gray cobblestone plaza surrounded by cafes and a granite fountain, which was donated to the city by private investors.  Once again the city itself was transformed by an artist’s intervention.  In this case Schütte, invited to participate in the 2007 Project, and seeing the site of his artwork transformed, defiantly reacted to this sterilization of the surrounding landscape by creating a ‘Museum of the Future’, “Which stands in contradiction to the architecturally clustered plaza”. *  Schütte known for his attention to craftsmanship and materials that evoke traces of the artist’s hand, chooses instead three sterile, industrial elements glass, steel and plastic to create his Modell für ein Museum. He places this construction over the plaza’s granite fountain, thus encapsulating this architectural form and containing its functionality. Further, his benches assembled along the exterior of the structure compel visitors to sit with their backs to the fountain, directing their view away from it, separating the fountain from public access and its site.  In this way he comments on how works of art can be removed from the world they inhabit, confined in the museum as in a sanitized art graveyard. 

What Michael Asher has done over the course of successive Münster Sculpture Project manifestations, since his 1977 project Installation Münster /Caravan was conceived, is to place a caravan in each of 15 chosen spots throughout the city, during the course of the exhibition. The caravan as such becomes an icon of domestic life ‘on the road’. As a metaphor for, one who’s desire is to bring one’s world along with them, the caravan comes to symbolize a ‘bürgerlich’ provincial thinking, like that which triggered the demonstrations against the Münster Project at its inception.  The work, through its photographic documentation, reveals the changes, which have occurred in the city over the 30 years and four successive manifestations of the Project.  The pedestrian nature of the work belies its significance as a marker of time and location.  The art work, which is moved every Monday to each of its successive 15 locations, can sometimes be found locked in its garage, because the cityscape has altered so significantly, that the next location no longer exists to accommodate it.

Silke Wagner’s Münster’s Geschichte von Unten /The History of Münster from Below stands in front of the city Stadthaus ‘City Offices’.  It is conceived as a monument to Paul Wulf, who at age seven, and one of four children, was removed from his home.  Like Michael Asher’s displaced caravan, Wulf could no longer be accommodated within the apartment inhabited by his growing family, or so it was claimed by the Nazi government of Münster.  Thus he was moved to an asylum for the mentally ill, and there sterilized by the Nazis.  During his life he fought legal battles for recognition and compensation against war crimes and became, despite his small physical stature, an icon of resistance to overreaching governmental injustices.  The artist covers Wulf’s body, with various historical documents, in the style of an information kiosk, these chronicle political and social struggle, against nuclear energy and the need for adequate housing.  Through Wagner’s collaboration with the Umweltzentrum Archiv Münster ‘Environmental Archive Society’, she further opens the potential for communication of these ideas beyond Wulf’s body to the world via the internet.

Overall these works are not monumental in scale, but reflect a more human sized format suitable for individual reflection.  For example, Isa Genzken’s Untitled umbrella compositions feel very much homemade. Her project is positioned adjoining the Überwasserkirche and being divided into 12 installations, has adopted a ‘stations of the cross’ metaphor for their assemblage.   She creates a powerful statement about childhood and adolescence in an age where children of affluence tend to ‘have it all’.  In this work children’s toys, dolls and various accessories are scared with paint or dismembered, seemingly a metaphor for neglect, or childhood afflictions like attention deficit disorder, resulting from excess and information overload.

Maria Pask’s Beautiful City reflects a sense of the communes of the sixties.  It offers a variety of religious dialogues presented through a series of lectures and events hosted within her tent encampment.  This open community welcomes the viewer with water and tea and a profusion of literature on political, social and religious topics. By offering unconditional access to shelter and participation within a harmonious community this work, as well as Asche’s caravan and Wagner’s monument, underlines the importance of affordable housing in today’s housing markets.

At the Erbdrostenhof, a former palace in baroque style, ‘where Richard Serra placed twenty-four tons of steel’* during the Münster Sculpture Project of 1987, Andreas Siekmann’s Trickle Down, Der öffentlice Raum im Zeitalter seiner Privatisierung ‘Public Space in the Era of its Privatization’, makes an equally significant statement using more modest means.  Siekmann shreds the fiberglass cows, bears, geese and other figures which have become pervasive in urban centers in Germany and beyond, due to the marketing efforts of cities.  These elements are assembled in one large ball-like structure, which is meant to reclaim the urban landscape, and offset the privatization of public space.  Thus Siekmann opens for dialogue the notion that these corporate sponsored figures are usurping public spaces, which are perhaps better served by the individualized statements of visual artists.

The majority of the works in Münster Sculpture Project of 2007 reflect an intimate format, which contrasts with popular interest in works of epic proportions. However figuratively speaking, these works are larger than life in their power to convey timeless subjects and sage commentary. This raises the questions, is bigger really better and can art and ideas transform societies and social consciousness?  Clearly in the case of the Münster Sculpture Project the modest has found its place and has succeeded in making a large impact.

Other projects to consider, which are on view in Germany at this time are Documenta in Kassel, curated by Ruth Noack and Made in Germany hosted at three separate venues in the city of Hannover.

Documenta lack luster at best, does have its high points.  The show stopper by veteran choreographer Trisha Brown, is a 1971 installation called Floor of the Forest.  A brilliant installation and 20 minute performance contained within a quadratic web of rope and attached clothing, which the 3 performers slowly navigate, donning a spectrum of shirts, pants, and sweaters as they move along through the piece.  The artwork takes it name from a symphony of ever changing shadows, which play upon the floor.

Another memorable piece was a multiple channel video installation, The Lightning Testimonies of 2007 by Amar Kanwar from New Delhi, India. This work documents actual events in the history of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh through which women have suffered sexual violence.  The flow of images, historical footage, shattered vessels, interviews and a panel play of natural elements provide a cathartic tribute, giving voice to all victims of these atrocities.  Another video work worth mentioning is “Who is listening?” from Yu Chin Tseng, which in one of its segments shows children trying to retain their composure as they are sprayed in the face with milk.  This simple concept, recorded with a camera placed very close to the children is extremely revealing.  It show all the emotions that pass across the faces of these kids, from tense expectation, boaderline tears as the milk is ejected, to cheerful pride as they accomplish the task of being sprayed. These works provide reason enough to make the passage to Kassel worth while.

Like the cherry on top of Schütte’s column in Münster the real treat was in Hannover with the three-part exhibition entitled, “Made in Germany”.   The three sites curated independently at Die Kestnergesellschaft by Eveline Bernasconi, Caroline Käding, Frank-Thorsten Moll and at the Kunstverein Hannover by Martin Engler and the Sprengel Museum Hannover by Susanne Meyer-Büser, Gabriele Sand contain the work of 52 artists born between 1961 and 1979 and presently working in Germany.  Marking the entrance of the Die Kestnergesellschaft is a remarkable, swaying chandalier the work of Stephan Hobar.    This show included some of the best video work coming out of Germany, artists like Candice Breitz, Nathalie Djurberg, Christoph Girardet, Christoph Keller, Bjorn Melhus, and Julian Rosenfeldt.  Other highlights are sensational installations, such as Bit Fall by Julius Popp, computer generated text written with falling water and a mysterious work entitled What the ? by RothStauffenberg a team composed of artists Christopher Roth and Franz von Stauffenberg.  These exhibitions, of mixed reviews ultimately make clear the vitality of the German art scene.

*  Taken from Sculpture Projects Muester 07, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln

Kimberly Marrero is an Independent Art Advisor and Curator who also serves as an Arts Educator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. 

Ron Rocco is an Independent Curator, and multimedia artist who has shown in numerous venues worldwide and lives and works in New York and Berlin, Germany.

New York as a viable option for working artists. 5/2006

Montag, Mai 29, 2006 

Sent to New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. No reply or acknowledgment of  receipt was ever given, despite four attempts, including ground post.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

 
Tuesday, May 30, 2006

 
Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

 I understand that recently you made a public address in New York, in regard to helping keep New York a viable option for working artists. As I am a working artist, who has recently been priced out of New York and have some suggestions on this issue, I thought I would write you to share these ideas.

There are three basic needs, without which a working artist can not survive in New York, which must be part of any initiative to keep the arts in New York.  One is affordable housing and the second is an affordable work space and the third access to affordable health care.  In regard to the former issue, I think the concept of low income, artist residential housing, embodied by the Westbeth project on Bank Street in Greenwich Village stands as a good model of what can be accomplished to provide for the residential needs of working artists.  Artist Residential Housing projects on the Westbeth model scattered through all the five Boroughs, would create a solid base for artists who are priced out of the New York housing market, and who wish to continue working in New York.  As at Westbeth it would need to be clear that residence be granted only to working artists (documented by education and exhibition history, without curatorial bias) and financial need.

In addressing the second issue of providing affordable work space I have some suggestions, which were presented in February 1996 for the organization Artists Talk on Arts entitled, NEW IDEAS FOR FUNDING THE VISUAL ARTS.*  I have for many years, and currently, work in Berlin, Germany for the simple reason that there are facilities accessible to artists here that provide ’state of the art’ technologies in various artistic media.   These facilities run by the organization BBK Berufsverbandes Bildender Künstler Berlins, were initially funded with public lottery money through the Berlin Senate for Culture.  They include a factory building, Bildhauerwerkstatt located in Berlin-Wedding, which is fully equipped for large scale sculpture fabrication in steel, bronze casting, ceramic and wood working, and a second facility, Druckwerkstatt, located in an old hospital building in Berin-Kreuzberg, which includes printmaking technologies from digital printing to silk screen, lithography etching and offset printing.  These facilities are open to all working artists (again documented by education and exhibition history, without curatorial bias) on a daily use (day fee), scheduled basis.  The facilities provide skilled technicians, tools, equipment and materials in each media (materials are paid for by the artist at cost, plus any handling fees required by the facility).  There is no residence at these facilities and work is limited to fixed schedules, within a daytime work period. (In New York 10-12 hour access might be more appropriate). 

As I mentioned in my presentation in 1996 New York already has some seed projects, which with proper assistance via City, State and Federal support could be developed to provide affordable work space in various media for a far greater number of artists.  In brief, these organizations include: Urban Glass (for artists working in Glass) in Brooklyn, the Lower East Side Printshop in Manhattan, Harvestworks (audio and digital media) and Film/Video Arts in Manhattan and Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens.  All these facilities, with exception perhaps for Urban Glass, are in very restricted locations, which allow for only limited access and scale for the work undertaken.  Once provided with larger, and more diverse facilities, staff and ’state of the art’ equipment, these organizations could provide excellent working spaces for a greater number of artists across several media.  In exchange for this support the organizations would need to be more open to artists, outside of any specific curatorial bias.

In addressing health care the Brooklyn Arts Council along with Woodhull Hospital, in that Borough, have engaged in an interesting new experiment to provide health care to working artists in Brooklyn.  Certainly if more medical institutions in New York City could be enticed to participate in a similar city-wide program that would help address this problem. 

I believe that it is in addressing these issues, that critical progress can be made for New York to retain viability as a working place in the arts.  I welcome your interest in working with the arts community to address this problem, and would recommend looking to the New York Foundation for the Arts for more information concerning the needs of New York artists, as they have undertaken a recent study on this question.  If I can be of any further assistance in this regard, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Ron Rocco
* a video of this presentation is available from Artists Talk on Arts.  (Guests included: Ron Rocco, moderator, artist;  Thomas Meister, Cultural Affairs Officer, German Consulate;  Jennifer Feil, New York Foundation for the Arts;  John Perreault, Director, Urban Glass; Robert Kloos, Cultural Affairs Officer, Dutch Consulate.)

Reflections on the Mathew Barney exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Samstag, Februar 04, 2006 

Reflections on the Mathew Barney exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York,  I would begin by reminding the curious to take a look at Caroline Tisdale’s catalog of the Joseph Beuys’ show at the Gugg in 1979 to get a better handle on the relationsip of Barney’s work at the Gugg last year. 

I was at that exhibition in 1979.  (The single most important exhibition I have ever seen at that institution.)  In fact, at the time a good friend and ex-Beuys student from Dusseldorf, John Halpern, was making his film Transformer which documents Beuys’ installation.  I met Beuys several times during that period and accompanied John during several filmed interviews of Beuys at Ronald Feldman’s gallery and with Tom Messer at the Guggenheim, this was long before I worked there in the eighties. 

Barney’s exhibition clearly made numerous gestures to Beuys retrospective at the Guggenheim and having seen Barney’s over time, it is clear he sees himself in the ‘Beuysian’ model.  I witnessed Barney’s installation at Documenta IX and this project solidified his European presence, while making it clear that like Beuys, he is a sculptor of actions, installation and performance.

“He is influenced above all by the art of the 70s and he has drawn stimuli from its most important protagonists.” Documenta IX GUIDEBOOK

At Kassel, Barney took command of a wedge-like architectural remnant found in the Tiefgarage (subterranean parking garage) near the Ottoneum and made it the site of his intervention.  This is in itself a Beuys-like attention to ‘healing’ a forgotten space, referencing the creation of Beuys’ Tallow /1977 cast from a pedestrian underpass in Munster, Germany in 1977.  In fact the wedge-like castings are an element which Barney brings to the Guggenheim in 2002 with the cast salt elements which one found scattered along the ramps.  Even the rivers of liquid vaseline, which Barney runs down the parapet wall speak to the melted fat which Beuys used in works like Fat Corner /1960 and Tallow. 

At the Guggenheim one also finds that Barney has created a ‘prepared’ piano or harpsichord in this case.  Similar to Beuys’ Infiltration-homogen for grand piano /1966 Barney silences the instrument pouring concrete into the body cavity of the piano, both muteing it and creating a surrealist juxtaposition of potentials.

“In the normal sense a piano is an instrument used to produce sound. When not in use it is silent, but still has a sound potential. Here, no sound is possible and the piano is condemned to silence.”  Caroline Tisdale/STATION 18 from Joseph Beuys Guggenheim Catalog of 1979