Ganzeer, "Mask of Freedom" sticker.

Why does art matter?

It’s a broad, reductive question – but one that has resounded with an almost vicious persistence since I moved back to Cairo, Egypt, last September.

Since the first days of the massive uprisings that began in this country exactly a year ago, there was an immediate turn to the visual to explain, celebrate, uphold, lead, or confound these sweeping social and political changes. Journalists, scholars, and curators set their sights on the arts as a key focal point in their efforts to turn this enormous, impossible to understand tide of events into a tidy, easy-to-circulate narrative. To that end, revolution-themed graffiti has been discussed ad nauseum; documentary films celebrating the allegedly newfound creative freedoms of post-Mubarak Egypt have been released at a rapid rate; and last spring saw an apotheosis of revolution-themed gallery shows in Egypt and abroad. Artists (and arts institutions) have alternately been panegyrized or criticized for their relative success or failure in transmitting the fervor of the uprisings.

So much has already been written about art and the Arab Spring, I am ambivalent (at best) about adding to the noise. Just like much of the art devoted to the revolution, the majority of the writing on this subject has ranged from the barely passable to the exasperating.  In several instances, there is an uncritical, latently imperialist assumption that it is the arrival of Western-style democracy (which, it must be noted, has not in fact been implemented here) that has allowed for a sudden cultural renaissance. These narratives have clearly been crafted by those who haven’t done their research – critically robust cultural activity has been taking place in Egypt (and the broader region) since long before the fall of the Mubarak regime, and even long before the West first became interested in the region after 9/11.

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Performance by Yuki Higashino at Skånes Konstförening, Malmö, Sweden

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I grew up during the 1980s, the era of videogames and heavy metal. I started to listen to German Thrash and Speed metal and eventually ended up a fan of Death and Black Metal. If the combination of videogames and art is a small yet growing part of the contemporary art scene, Black Metal represents an even smaller part of it. But things are changing. It has been a while since Black Metal was a subversive Norwegian subculture. Today, Black Metal has become both mainstream and commercial. During 2011, Sweden saw an increasing interest for darkness and Black Metal within its contemporay art scene. Two Swedish exhibitions–Nordic Darkness and Om ljuset tar oss–focused on Black metal (it may not sound like much, but remember Sweden is a small country, and compared to previous years, that’s a lot of exhibitions). During the summer of 2011, I wrote a series of articles about Black Metal in contemporay art and realized that the subject was much broader than I had thought. For example, I came across the artist and theorist Amelia Ishmael (a previous Art21 guest blogger) and realized that Black Metal theory is now even taught in the programs of several different Universities.

After I had finished writing this series of articles, I came across an interesting performance held at Skånes Konstförening in Malmö, Sweden. I’d like to share an interview I did with the artists, in order to illustrate  one of the ways that artists are using Black Metal in contemporary art today.*

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Abdellah Karroum, Venice, 2011.

Abdellah Karroum is a Moroccan independent art researcher and curator based in Paris, France and Rabat, Morocco. Karroum founded L’appartement 22 in 2002, the first independent experimental space in Rabat, which inspired the formation of a number of artist-run spaces in Morocco. Nationally as well as internationally acclaimed artists, writers, and filmmakers, including Adel Bdessemed, Doa Aly, Hamdi Attia, Douad Bellamine, Faouzi Laatiris, Cecile Bourne and others have left their mark on L’appartment 22. In addition, Radioappartement22, an experimental online radio, provided the space with a platform for hosting equally significant projects over the past decade.

Between 1993 and 1996, Karroum served as the assistant curator at the CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux in France. In 2006 he was appointed associate curator of the DAK’ART Biennial for African Contemporary Art in Senegal; later in 2008 he became co-curator of the Position Papers program for the Gwangju Biennale, and in 2009, the curator of the 3^rd AiM International Biennale in Marrakesh, followed by the curatorial project “Sentences on the Banks and other activities” in Darat Al-Funun in Amman, in 2010.

This past summer, Karroum curated the Working for Change project for the Moroccan Pavilion at the 54^th Venice Biennale. This research and action-based project focused on producing artworks and sharing documents. After a research period in the Rif (Morocco), the project continues in Venice with the aim of proposing and studying connections between artistic production and social contexts. Morocco’s example proved significant here at the artistic and political levels, as seen in each of the proposed artworks. This curatorial project’s “practive” approach–which involves the joining of the practice of art as research to its appearance as active production (practice + active)–seeks to activate projects, including several collaborations in Morocco with feminists and other activists.

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Ania Szremski.

We’re very pleased to announce the Art21 Blog’s newest column, Cairo in Context: Art and Change in the Middle East. Written by Ania Szremski, a researcher/writer and curator based in Cairo, the column launches at the end of the week marking the one-year anniversary of the Tahrir Square uprisings in Egypt. While many writers have been quick to celebrate the new creative freedoms and “revolutionary potential” of the art made during this period, Cairo in Context will reveal a more complicated reality. As Szremski points out in her first post, “critically robust cultural activity has been taking place in Egypt (and the broader region) since long before the fall of the Mubarak regime, and even long before the West first became interested in the region after 9/11.”

In the coming months, Szremski’s column will attempt to chart a course between, as she puts it, “uncritical celebrations of the utopian idea of ‘free expression’ in a post-Mubarak era…and sober admonitions that the visual arts don’t, or can’t, have a responsibility towards the current political context.” Throughout, she’ll ask readers to think about the importance and potential of art-making in Cairo and beyond at this moment in time.

Ania Szremski is an associate curator at the Townhouse, a non-profit contemporary art space in downtown Cairo, Egypt. She is also currently researching Egyptian art during the transition from socialism to free market capitalism on a Fulbright grant. Cairo in Context’s first post goes live later today, and the column will thereafter be published on the third Thursday of each month.

We at Art21 invite you to participate in Access ’12 by hosting a free screening of Art in the Twenty-First Century during the months of April and May, 2012 (later dates are also possible).

Access ’12 is a global campaign providing access to contemporary art and artists through hundreds of free public screenings and events celebrating the premiere of Season Six of Art in the Twenty-First Century. Access ‘12 events are hosted at museums, libraries, universities, community-based organizations, art spaces, and even coffee shops worldwide. Previous Access partners have even hosted an event at a a research center in Antarctica! Whether you plan a conversation with local artists, a panel discussion, a community-based art project, or just a screening party, join Art21′s Access ’12 to broaden and inspire a diverse exchange of ideas and perspectives.

Season Six profiles fourteen artists from five continents in four, one-hour thematic episodes: Change; Balance; History; and Boundaries. The artists include Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei, David Altmejd, assume vivid astro focus, Lynda Benglis, Rackstraw Downes, El Anatsui, Mary Reid Kelley, Glenn Ligon, Robert Mangold, Catherine Opie, Sarah Sze, and Tabaimo. You can view a trailer for Season Six here.

Hosting an event is easy. Access partners receive a free screening tool kit, which includes a DVD screener, a screening guide, a customizable press release to publicize the event, announcement postcards, and more. Every venue is welcome!

Season Five’s Access ’09 was a great success, with 447 screening events taking place in all 50 states and 25 countries. As one of our partners commented, “This event couldn’t have gone better if we’d tried. We were all a bit nervous about what to expect, since it was a first-time event and much of our community was not familiar with Art21. However, the turnout beat our wildest expectations… the place was packed!”

To learn more about Access ’12 or to host a free event at your space or venue, please visit www.art21.org/access or contact access@art21.org.

We’re back once again with another special podcast produced exclusively for the Art21 Blog’s “Centerfield” column. This week, our panelists, artist Dan Gunn, artist and Bad at Sports co-founder Duncan MacKenzie, and Chicago arts writer and Art21 Blog editor Claudine Isé review the solo exhibition Cathy Wilkes: I Give You All My Money at The Renaissance Society and discuss the artist Damien Hirst as sign, signifier, and circus ringmaster of the contemporary art world and commodity culture at large–a discussion sparked by art critic Christian Viveros-Faune’s tongue-in-cheek eulogy for Hirst in the January 18, 2012 issue of the Village Voice. We also share our monthly recommendations of what to see in Chicago and the Midwestern region, with links below. As always, thank you for listening!

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 Click here to listen to the podcast.

Installation shots from Cathy Wilkes: I Give You All My Money (note: shots are from the installation at The Modern Institute, not The Renaissance Society):

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When I win the Hugo Boss Prize, I’ll definitely thank the professors I met along my BFA and MFA way.  Without them, I wouldn’t know how to dress for openings, patiently nod during boring conversation, or politely tell a student to shut the hell up.  To me, it’s these small but important aspects of teaching and learning in the fine arts that are so important and inspiring.

As a youngster, it was much easier to identify the role of teacher.  In elementary school, the teacher was the rickety old nun who didn’t let anyone go to the bathroom.  She corrected our speech, like saying, “zero” instead of “oh” or, “I’m finished” instead of “I’m done.” In ballet school, the teacher was the Russian who barely spoke English and yelled a lot.  She told me to turn out my feet when they were too parallel.  She loudly clapped her hands to keep the beat of the melody that I apparently couldn’t hear or follow.  In art school, the role was slightly different.  There was encouragement and patience, not discipline and order.  Aside from correctly identifying years on an art history test, there seemed to be no right or wrong answer from a student.

Google image search results for "Sister Act," from stardusttrailers.com.

The graduate school experience was practically a blur of power between student and teacher that, frankly, scared the shit out of me.  Here was my typical thought pattern—directed at the professor—during my crit: “Why are you not saying anything?  Don’t you like it?  Isn’t it good??  This took me like, a week to make!!  Aren’t you going to confirm how amazing I am?!?”  By going through the system, I developed a type of confidence and independence in my thought process as well as a dependence on the thoughts of other artists whose opinions I valued.  My professors and I have maintained close ties where I still manage to default into a scared and curious student in our e-mail exchanges.

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Andrea Fraser. "Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk", 1989. Video still of performance. Courtesy UCLA.

This week, Andrea Fraser premiered her new performance Men on the Line, KPFK, 1972 in which she reenacts an eponymous LA public radio program from forty years ago. Clad in a masculine shirt and pants, Fraser embodies the voices of four men: Lee Chrismier, Bob Keneger, Jeremy Shapiro, and moderator Everett Frost as they discuss their positions as male feminists and active supporters of the Women’s Movement.

Fraser’s Men on the Line represents part of the Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980 Performance and Public Art Festival.  Of course, the timeframe of PST underscores the historical focus of the Performance and Public Art Festival—meaning that most of the works are reenactments or reinterpretations of earlier pieces, as Catherine Wagley cited earlier this month in her most recent Looking at Los Angeles post.  But unlike Suzanne Lacy’s Three Weeks in January/ Three Weeks in May piece or Liz Glynn’s Spirit Resurrection performance series, Fraser’s Men on the Line reframes a non-art event in the context of performance art. While the themes of Men on the Line relate to Fraser’s canon of institutional critique-based works, the gesture of transcribing and re-performing this radio conversation aligns with the artist’s more recent video piece, Projection. For the latter piece, Fraser documented, transcribed, performed, and edited an intense series of psychoanalytic sessions, embodying her therapist and re-embodying herself as the patient.  Moreover, it is distinct from works such as Official Welcome and Untitled in its separation from themes such as art elitism, classism, and ageism—focusing more narrowly on gender and the shifting efforts of feminism.

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Students in Maureen Hergott's class transform the space

Last week when I shared an interview with Julia CopperSmith and Maureen Hergott, two of our current Art21 Educators, one set of quotes particularly struck me. At one point I was asking about whether they both had an “a-ha” moment during our summer institute together and how that moment has influenced their teaching. Allow me to rewind for a moment:

How has that “a-ha” moment affected the year so far?

Maureen Hergott: Rather then designing “projects” for our students to make, Julia and I have been trying to develop lessons that allow our students to have contemporary art-making experiences.  We try to give them the foundation and confidence to be able to explore a variety of materials and make artistic choices on their own.  We want them to have a sense of pride in and ownership of their artwork.   Often times, we have the students working collaboratively so that they can share ideas and learn from one another.

Julia CopperSmith: I see my students once a week.  As an adult it is easy to forget that for an elementary school student a week is a long period of time. It has been helpful for my teaching to begin lessons by showing my students video clips from the prior week’s lesson. Using documentation as a starting point for discussion has assisted my students in building upon their prior learning experiences.

Maureen and Julia both make important points in this part of the interview and I wanted to highlight two of them this week…

First, if we want to truly transform art-making experiences for elementary age students and move away from step-by-step craft projects that are more about following directions than being creative, then we have to construct experiences for young students that allow them to think and behave like artists. For example, less “Here’s is how we are going to transform our space” and more “How can we transform our space?” Giving students the opportunity, not to mention power, to make creative choices is extremely important as we begin to expand on what elementary art education can be.

Second, Julia’s point about using video documentation to inspire discussion is an fantastic suggestion. There are literally tons of ways to take, make and share video at this point, and using video to bridge the often gargantuan gaps between elementary art classes can be a wonderful way to maintain continuity. Students don’t need to rehash the entire previous lesson, but a few minutes of reflection, discussion and planning can go a long way. And is it any surprise that students would love to see themselves in order to inspire themselves? I mean, really.

Many thanks once again to Julia and Maureen for agreeing to the interview and for sharing their perspective with us!

Stefano Spera. "Grand Theft Auto," 2009. Oil on canvas. 100 x 120 cm.

The freedom to explore all of a game’s territory is one of the keys to the success of the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series from Rockstar Games. The first game in the series was released 1997. Since then, ten stand-alone games and four expansion packs has been produced for PC consoles and Xbox and Playstation devices. It’s not only the players that love the freedom of the game’s storyline–many artists have been attracted to GTA’s virtual world and are inspired to explore it further, in their own ways. GTA is a good example how artists today are using different techniques to appropriate commercial videogames for works of art.

But first, I think I need to make a distinction between fan art and game art. As in many popular cultures, there is a lot of fan art connected to videogames that is created by dedicated players. That art can take the form of paintings, stories, videos and so on. But fan art is often only a reproduction of an existing game world. The fan artists are mimicking the aesthetic of the games and are  following certain templates created by the fan community. Game art, on the other hand, experiments with and challenges the image and the idea of what a game can be. It can borrow the aesthetic of the game, but it is often critical of that aesthetic. The artists use the game as a platform or interface to explain and explore larger questions of gender, violence, and economic and social realities that are played out in the game world.

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