The Candidate

Project for an Unidentified Political Object (2014-15) is a participatory artistic proposal brought recently by the English artist Gordon Shrigley. The MP Candidate - a project realised during the 2015 General Elections in the UK - had a total of 28 votes, i.e. participatory spectators. The 27 + 1 votes, which expressed a political decision, are the moment when participation as an act became visible for everyone, although, at the end, even if being expressed within a political frame-work and set, it was an art project, not a political proposal. Congratulations to the Candidate Candidature - that's one choice! that's greater freedom!

Pipilotti Rist: Worry Will Vanish

Pipilotti Rist
Worry Will Vanish
Hauser & Wirth

"Christmas is the time for special things to happen!"

In «‘Worry Will Vanish’, Rist has transformed the gallery into a fully immersive, sensory environment. Projected against two walls, ‘Worry Will Vanish Horizon’ (2014) is a journey inside the human body, based on a three-dimensional animation. Rist delights in patterns created by manipulating creases of skin, caressing, pushing and pulling to depict the varied textures of human flesh. These corporeal images periodically overlap with close-up fragments from nature as Rist blurs the boundaries between the self and organic structures. She explores the relationship between internal and external, how individuals are linked to the tissues and blood vessels of other organisms, and in so doing, she suggests relationships with the universe at large.» [... MORE ...]

«Pipilotti Rist was born in Grabs in the Swiss Rhine Valley in 1962. Since emerging on the international art scene in the mid-1980s and 1990s with famous single channel videos such as ‘I’m Not The Girl Who Misses Much’ (1986) and ‘Pickelporno’ (1992), Rist has had numerous solo and group exhibitions and is one of the most celebrated video artists working today. In 2009 Rist was awarded the Joan Miró Prize for her wide-ranging creative activity and her outstanding contribution to the current artistic scene by Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain. For her first feature film, ‘Pepperminta’ (2009), in 2009 Rist was awarded the President of the Jury’s Extraordinary Award at Spain’s 6th Seville European Film Festival and in 2010 she received the ‘Cutting the Edge Award’ by Miami International European Film Festival. In 2012, Rist was awarded the Harper’s Bazaar Art China prize for ‘Best Artist’ and in June 2013, she was awarded the Zurich Festival Prize 2013.

Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Gentle Wave in Your Eye Fluid’, Times Museum in Guangzhou, China (2013); ‘Pipilotti Rist. A la belle étoile’, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle WA (2012); ‘Pipilotti Rist – Spear to heaven!’, LEEUM Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; ‘Blutbetriebene Kameras und quellende Räume’, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (2012); ‘Eyeball Massage’, Hayward Gallery, London, England (2011) which travelled to Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany (2012); ‘Parasimpatico’, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Cinema Manzoni, Milan, Italy (2011); ‘Pipilotti Rist. Partit amistós – sentiments electrónics’, Fundació Joan Miró & Centre Cultura Caixa Girona Fontana d’Or, Barcelona / Girona, Spain (2010); ‘Elixir – The video organism of Pipilotti Rist’, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2009); ‘Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Metres)’, MoMA, New York NY (2008) and ‘A la belle étoile’, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2007).» [... MORE ...]

I am here seated and thinking about an interesting angle on Tate’s 2014 Turner Prize

I think it is amazing what time-lapse can cause to a particular cause. People complaint about the 80s, for instances, but it may not be the proclaimed principle. The main thing about it is that it worked on the subcultural level, with extreme levels of creativity to inform about a cause deserving our attention, a movement that advocated a deep commitment to support a socio-political whatsoever - being it a lesbian or gay cause, negritude or colonialism, or, even, Samantha Fox's completely dressed performance in 'Touch Me', which is still more social-cultural provocative than Miley Cyrus almost naked performances.

We need public interventions like those, when the questioning was also relevant, not the cynical entertainment that we are offered on a constant base, by the present days, of abstract ideas documenting our ordinary everyday life routines; go and redefine off so terrible moments. The abysmal thing to say, to transform a dull language, either it be about (gratuitous) images from nipples, dicks, vaginas, anus or a person's pubic hair… whatever! Do not want to trivialise, but this idea is packed of trivial topics. Definitely, if the 80s were whatever they were, the 00s and the 10s are worse!

Marina Abramović: 512 Hours

Marina Abramović
512 Hours
Serpentine Gallery

I went to see Mariana at the Serpentina... and, I went to see Mariana at the Serpentina. 512 Hours by Marina Abramović, at the Serpentina, is a live tableau where the artist uses people instead of oil. A life size canvas in where the artist brings to life and wanders about bare life. A triptych about being! On the left panel we sit; on the central one we stand; while on the panel on the right we walk. (Other possible combinations might occur throughout time). The dynamics provoked by people being reminds me of a painters impression on the ink on the canvas, with it's particular texture, size, movement, pressure and different colours combining and relating with each other on a harmonious way.

No time devices, like watches, are allowed in the tableau. One has to become lost to time. So, definitively, this is not a surrealist painting. Take our own rhythm and slow down do the barest of it all. Just be being there: standing, walking, sitting, laying down, or counting seeds.

The audience participates in a performance about audience participation in the conception of the art work. However, the audience performative participation is, in contrary to previous performances delivered by the Serbian-born artist, more controlled by the artist and her "dwarfs". Although it requires a participation it is more like an authoritative state rather than a democratic one leading our decision on towards the outcome of the dynamics driving the conditions for the opening of possibilities.

Being it what it is, the need to be present as audience so the performance about audience participation occurs is a requirement. A necessity for the artist but not for the audience in itself. One is what one is without the need to have to go to mass concentration places to be what one is. Generalisations are good. But they are just that, generalisations. The particulars are what makes the being be, not the whole. As a part of a whole body - being audience - we, as individuals stop being a singularity, with our own voice, and have to follow the democratisation idea in where the majority has a ruling voice. However, in 512 Hours the ruling voice of the minority is the deciding voice just like in an democratic state... and, I should had gone directly to the closest sorority in town and have a truly audience participation and actively engage in a more penetrative way. I should had gone to a sorority and, instead, went to see Mariana at the Serpentina...

PS. The artist, as the author, is present all throughout the performative performance about audience participation.