newsfromfrieze201110

newsfromfrieze201110

For the first time, since I started to visit and follow commercial playgrounds for art, did an art fair looked so in vain (in particularly this one); in spite of all the brigth and colorful art works filling stands and crowds of collectors, advisers, artists and other professionals bumping into each others along narrow but comfortable corridors. Frieze VIP preview, this afternoon, presented the usual head-shots: Norah and Norman Stone, Daria (“Dasha”) Zhukova or even Paula Rego were just some of the VIP amongst an international flux of art aficionados.

If there is a crisis, it definitely stayed outside the big white tent installed at Regent Park. Frieze this year was looking into the bright side of life. “We’re always a little tense at the start,” said also Akio Aoki of Vermelho (H6), although he was more encouraged when, by the middle of the afternoon, nine of the artworks brought from Brazil into London had found buyers.

Between 2001 and 2008, galleries tended to bring with them fresh art works, directly from the artist studio, to the most important international art fairs; since 2009, for those who follow the programme delivered by those international commercial spaces, it became more evident that many of the works on show at the fair tended to reflected a long-run bet done by the galleries throughout their annual schedule of exhibitions. Which is good for the artist, since galleries have to liaise more with them; focused more on building an artist career, on one level, and strengthening his or her work, on the other. While, to collectors, they start to see new and more thoughtful work.

The down side of it is in that it is true that «in a recession, more challenging work is harder to shift», and this fact was even more perceptible as I strolled from one stand to the next. Nothing catchy, visually memorable - as the works by Murakami, Hirst or Koons who have market a decade - but instead pieces that anyone could buy for the right price (for more info on prices please read The Art Newspaper Fair edition).

In a quick chat with Brazilian artist, Ernesto Neto, we both come to the same conclusion, that this year it was more into looking for forms rather than into content: brightly coloured and with curveous lines, artworks that reinforced the feeling that the art world exists in a cheerful and leading parallel universe.

LEFT: Wangechi Mutu, 'Venus Trap' (mixed media collage, 22.9x29.8cm), 2011 at Victoria Miro (G5); RIGHT: Christian Jankowski, 'Christian' (The Finest Art on Water), 2011 at Frieze Projects (P5).

Red Parrots, Watercolour on 640 gsm Arches paper

Four o clock, on a Thursday afternoon! Central London, beside the Royal Albert Hall. Three young gallery assistants help to unload paintings and photos from a van parked in front of the Royal College of Art. Inside, a botanical watercolour and a nude oil on canvas, both at Jonathan Cooper Park Walk Gallery – with a £14k price tag –, rub shoulders with drawing (rising from £500), prints and photographs (£250 upward), and other small and large paintings, which occupy two levels of the RCA. The 20/21 British Art Fair, which has opened on the previous day, is a more modern (figurative) than contemporary (conceptual) art fair. This rather local (national) commodity selling place presented idyllic visions, and occasional thought-provoking art pieces, ranging from the beginning of the twentieth century into present day. A familiar scene occurs when one of the individual character strolling from stand to stand, says «I would rather buy that one over there. It looks more unrealistic». Apart from the wording, I have almost felt being at home, as when walking through the wide obnoxious aisles of the perfidious Contemporary Art Fair, Arte Lisboa.

newsfromlabiennale201105

Tamara Kvesitadze (Tbilisi, Georgia in 1968) is representing Georgia at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«Kvesitadze's work is all about contrasts: between the organic and the mechanic, the cold stone and the warm flesh of the body. Georgia is at the crossroads of the East and the West, where the two civilisations meet, so these contrasts are consistent with her work. There is a Georgian saying which reflects this idea: 'Unless you die, you cannot be reborn.' This concept of rebirth and continuity continues in the timelessness of her figures and their simplicity [...]

newsfromlabiennale201105

Reem Al Ghaith, Abdullah Al Saadi and Lateefa Bint Maktoum are representing the United Arab Emirates at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

newsfromlabiennale201105

Tabaimo (Hyogo, Japan, in 1975) is representing Japan at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

newsfromlabiennale201105

Martine Feipel & Jean Bechameil (Luxembourg, in 1975 and Paris (F) in 1964) are representing Luxembourg at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«The installation Le Cercle Fermé (Closed Circle) inscribes itself both in the exhibition space – the Ca' del Duca, which has housed the Luxembourg pavilion for a number of years now – and in the city of Venice : ‘‘Having ventured into the streets of Venice, the viewers find themselves in the Ca' del Duca confronted by a maze of corridors, doorways, staircases and mirrors’’, explain the artists. ‘‘Deliberately misleading architecture leads them astray through this succession of rooms, finally directing them back to the starting point.’’ As in the maze of Venitian streets, the visitor is plunged into an atmosphere ‘‘of strange timelessness’’ and mystery. He or she may even intervene in the circuit by shifting doors and mirrors. By advancing from space to space, visitors create their own story in intimate symbiosis with the artwork [...]

newsfromlabiennale201105

Melanie Smith (Poole, England, in 1965) is representing Mexico at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«Since 1989 Melanie Smith has lived and worked in Mexico City, an experience that has enormously influenced her works ever since. Her work has been characterized by a certain re-reading of the formal and aesthetic categories of avant-gardes and post-avant-garde movements, problematized at the sites and within the horizons of heterotopias. Her production is intimately related to a certain expanded vision of the notion of modernity, maintaining a relationship both with what this means in Latin America, particularly in Mexico, and with the implication this has for her formal explorations as a critical moment in the aesthetic-political structure of modernity and late modernity [...]

newsfromlabiennale201105

Liina Siib (Tallinn, Estonia, in 1963) is representing Estonia at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«Liina Siib is one of the first artists in Estonia who started to use digitally treated photographs. From the very beginning, her "topic" has been the deeper facets of human nature, the complicated relations between childhood and the world of adults. Liina Siib penetrates ever deeper into those concealed facets, creating more multilayered and elaborate systems of allusions. She has chosen to cast a closer look at one savoury moment - a child's wish to become an adult as soon as possible, and the images that childhood presents as the grown-up world. Profound sadness can sometimes be glimpsed on these pictures an adult‚s submission to laws that cannot be changed, and an inability to comfort children in their activity and games [...]

newsfromlabiennale201105

Ho Tzu Nyen (Singapore, in 1976) is representing Singapore at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«Ho Tzu Nyen’s practice ranges across filmmaking, painting, performance and writing, and investigates the forms, methods and languages of art; the relationship between the still, the painted and the moving image; and the construction of history. His films expose the apparatus of cinema by mixing varied genres from music video to documentary, creating highly artificial sets, or by making cameras, crew and lighting a key part of the action. For APT6, Ho will produce two new films. Zarathustra: A Film for Everyone and No One 2009 draws on the writings of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche — which explores the potential of humankind to overcome their environment — as well as music Nietzsche inspired: ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ by Richard Strauss, famously used by Stanley Kubrick in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. H the Happy Robot 2009, a modern fable created for the Kids’ APT about the nature of technology, features a cardboard robot named H who eventually becomes obsolete. Set in a future Singapore, the work will be presented within a specially created cardboard environment, inviting children into H’s world [...]

newsfromlabiennale201105

Andrei Monastyrski (Petsamo, Murmansk region (USSR), in 1949) and Collective Actions group (Andrei Monastyrski, Nikolai Panitkov, Igor
Makarevich, Elena Elagina, Sabine Hänsgen, Sergei Romashko) are representing Russia at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«The aesthetic field created by Monastyrski is composed of a number of equally significant components artworks, theoretical texts, performances, poetry, and documentations of Collective Actions group, of which he is the leader and the driving force since 1976. This first museum exhibition of Monastyrski is the starting point for the theoretical comprehension and representation of the artist through a retrospective of his installations [...]

newsfromlabiennale201105

Mirko Bratuša (Negova, Slovenia, in 1963) is representing Slovenia at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«The sculptor Mirko Bratus will be presented to the public with the project for Heaters warm emotions, an installation of sculptures made up of ten bodies, some anthropomorphic and other pertaining to the plant world, networked through pipelines. The internal power supply, silent, warm, and umidificherà raredderà terracotta statues. With cooling components anthropomorphic heat will be conveyed to the other to warm them, thus establishing a network of art as a system of bodies, which indicates a mutual dependency. The metaphorical message of the art system thus established is universally applicable to modern society, where everything happens as a result of a mutual relationship: the enrichment of a part of the world is poverty on the other hand, the exploitation of nature due to natural disasters, social unrest, supported by social networks changing political systems [...]

newsfromlabiennale201105

Corban Walker (Dublin, in 1967) is representing Ireland at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«Corban Walker gained recognition for his installations, sculptures and drawings that relate to his perception of scale and architectural constructs. Local, cultural and specific philosophies of scale are fundamental to how Walker defines and develops his work [...]

newsfromlabiennale201105

Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson (Málaga (SP) in 1970 and Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1973) are representing Iceland at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«The official Icelandic representation at the 54th International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia will be the Spanish-Icelandic duo of Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson, whose collaborations explore the political, socio-economic, and personal forces that affect life in the present day. Their work, which has taken them to cities around the world, and often develops out of their personal interactions with people and places, can be characterized as an artistic interpretation of culture and the complex relationships that compose it. Castro and Ólafsson’s exhibition for Venice, Under Deconstruction, will explore current socio-political issues in Iceland and elsewhere, using video, performance, sculpture, sound, and music interventions. The 2011 exhibition is organized by the Icelandic Art Center in Reykjavík, Iceland, under the commissionership of Dorothée Kirch, and is curated by Ellen Blumenstein [...]»

newsfromlabiennale201105

Mabel Palacín (Barcelona (SP) in 1965) is representing the Catalonia and Balearic Islands project at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«The project “180 degrees” is a work inspired by films. The title refers to the 180 degree rule which marks the position of the characters involved in a dialogue so the viewer does not lose orientation on the scene. The work of Mabel Palacin part from a photograph of a place (apparently not significant) in high definition and split into multiple views which give rise to the micro-narratives at work in the installation. This work proposes a reflection on the role of image and its deconstruction and reconstruction in contemporary art.»

«Palacín, a video artist, also enjoys subverting expectations through shifts in perspective. Her main interest, however, is in exploring the interface between still and moving images [...]»

newsfromlabiennale201105

Allora y Calzadilla (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (US) in 1974 and Havana (Cuba) in 1971) are representing the USA at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«If you question whether the Museum of Modern Art should be collecting works of performance art, your doubts may be assuaged by the sight and sound of “Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on ‘Ode to Joy’ for a Prepared Piano,” a trenchant, newly acquired work by Allora & Calzadilla, the artist team that will represent the United States at the next Venice Biennale. Created in 2008 and first exhibited at the Haus der Kunst in Munich that year, this performance-sculpture-recital-dance piece was an instant hit when it was at the Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea in January 2009 [...]

newsfromlabiennale201105

Christian Boltanski (Paris in 1944) is representing France at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

Christian Boltanski, "Chance," 2011.
© Didier Plowy.

newsfromlabiennale201104

Žarko Bašeski (1957) is representing Macedonia at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

"Zarko Baseski in his workshop."
Photo by Tristan JEANNE-VALES.
Copyright © 2010.

newsfromlabiennale201104

Ion Grigorescu (1945), Anetta Mona Chişa and Lucia Tkáčová (Nadlac, Romania in 1975 and Banska Stiavnica, Slovakia in 1977) are representing Romania at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

«Grigorescu is one of the very few multimedia artists in Romania who during the communist regime conducted visual research on the body: a taboo topic at the time. The artist’s body became work “material”—perceived as a “medium” and surface—onto which mental images are reflected. His body performances are to be seen as “post-happenings” with the emphasis no longer on the temporal dimension but rather on the photographic snapshot that, however, preserves a performative character. These works, like many others from the nineteen-seventies and eighties, would go public only much later [...]

«Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová have been working together since 2000. They explore gender relations as well as their role of Eastern European artists in a Western-dominated art world.
Their projects are often based on contextual interpretation of art from Eastern Europe and its stereotypical mode of representation, derived from a grid of geopolitical relations. Playing with the concept of access to different forms of power, the artists refer to the typical situation in post-communist New Europe, while, on the other hand, they are deconstructing society’s icons and habits, revealing their basic economic fundaments and functioning.
Latterly they focus on formulating methods that can be applied to forgotten segments of historical facts and events. The social, personal, historical and political get ultimately unified while memory and oblivion are paired, forgotten moments of life awarded and the sense of the whole lot discredited.
With videos, installations, textual works, and performances they refract consumer expectations and trigger processes of reflection about gender questions, the art market, and making art [...]

newsfromlabiennale201104

Dominik Lang (Prague in 1980) is representing Czech and Slovak Republic at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011

Dominik Lang’s (*1980) exhibition project The Sleeping City links two different sculptural approaches with various historical contexts against the background of an intimate family relationship. The presentation connects the works of two authors linked by a personal association, father and son, and thus creates a basis for developing a fictitious inter-generation dialogue. One of the project’s starting points is the fact that the works of Dominik Lang’s father, Jiří Lang (1927–1996), were “short-circuited“ by the absurdity of the times, i.e. of the forced uniformity of the 1950s society in the Soviet Block, and have remained – in spite of the initial laudatory epithets: “a good start“, “promising“ – deposited in the author’s studio, “incarcerated“ in its own times. The stifling atmosphere of a studio crowded with “sleeping“ statues, the social insulation, resignation, and apathy, but also one particular 1960 relief, called “The Sleeping City“: these are the sources for the title of D. Lang’s multi-layered project. In his site-specific installation, he puts forth a hypothetical model of a never-realized exhibition: he handles the works of the generationally antecedent artist as a material for formative activity, torn out of its historical context, as phantoms of times gone, inset within new scenes and constellations. In doing this he stages an uncompromising image of the “impossibility“ enforced by the given circumstances [...]