Berliner Salon: Fashion Week and the Paparazzi
Yesterday inaugurated Berlin Fashion Week, which will continue through the weekend, bringing a number of “celebrities” to town, as well as designers, models and the ubiquitous hangers-on. It’s a pretty well known fact, however, that Berlin Fashion Week often leaves much to be desired, both in the way of big name runway shows, and big name industry insiders. Fortunately, the Helmut Newton Foundationhas taken it upon itself to mount an exhibition celebrating old-guard glamour and the cult of celebrity, so out-of-towners and locals alike can still indulge in some good old fashion voyeurism.Entitled Pigozzi and the Paparazzi and with “approximately 350 b/w and colour prints by Salomon, Weegee, Galella, Quinn, Angeli, Secchiaroli, Pigozzi and Newton, the exhibition presents the forerunners and central figures of the “classic” period of paparrazi photography—and provides a visual commentary about the evolution of this phenomenon. The exhibition offers an overview and critical look at the history of a photographic genre dedicated to fame and sensationalism,” according to the press release. In light of the present-day hysteria surrounding public figures, Pigozzi and the Paparazzi offers a more serene, nostalgic and somehow romantic version of celebrity sovereignty, back when it was dignified.The exhibition runs through November 16th. To view additional images from the show, click here. Schoenes Wochenende.
Socially Acceptable
My biggest pet peeve in New York City is watching men (and women) of all walks of life, hack and cough, then swiftly discharge a slimy wad of saliva on the sidewalk as passersby narrowly attempt to avoid its path. Despite my repulsion for this most sordid act, saliva is the product of Ana Prvacki’s innovative performance at the Sydney Biennale this year in which she produced gallons of saliva through a solemn flute solo. The bodily fluid—known for its medicinal properties—is then used as a healing salve. Though her actual saliva cannot legally be used, Prvacki has worked with a chemist to create wet wipes infused with her music-derived painkiller that were distributed at her performance at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art in June. The event was reviewed in the The Sydney Morning Herald and images of her performance can be seen on the 2008 Sydney Biennale website.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Prvacki’s performance in view of the upcoming exhibition, theanyspacewhatever, at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, organized by Chief Curator Nancy Spector, which will open this fall. The show addresses artists whose conceptual and social practices in the 1990s are frequently defined by the term “relational aesthetics,” a phrase coined by Nicolas Bourriaud in his collection of essays by the same name (originally published in France in 1998). Art: 21 artist Pierre Huyghe (Season 4) as well as Angela Bulloch, Maurizio Cattelan, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Forester, Douglas Gordon, Carsten Höller, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija are included in the forthcoming exhibition. Though I am eager to see how this ambitious project is executed, I can’t help but question the institutionalization of such practices. Aren’t they inherently in opposition to such institutions? And where do artists like Lygia Clark, Jeremy Deller, William Pope L., and Ana Prvacki fit into this dialogue?
Berliner Salon: Richard Serra at Kunst Werke
Last weekend Kunst Werke opened an exhibition of films by Ricarda Roggan, Albrecht Schäfer and Art:21 Season 1 artist Richard Serra. Serra’s part of the exhibition, entitled Thinking on Your Feet (in reference to a 2005 documentary about the artist by Maria Anna Tappeiner), is comprised of 5 videos shot by Serra between 1968 and 1976. The press release touts this exhibition as the first devoted solely to the artist’s cinematic work and quotes Serra as stating, “Seeing Chelsea Girls and Yvonne Rainer’s hand film, I felt that making film was open to me. Up to that point, I’d felt a deference for film, and maybe I was a little bit frightened of it; I wouldn’t have picked up a camera… I probably had to shoot these films so as to make the difference to sculpture clearer to me.”
Thinking on Your Feet is on view at Kunst Werke until September 7th. To learn more about the exhibition click here. Schoenes Wochenende.
Allora & Calzadilla’s Munich Harmonies
Check out this interview and footage from Vernissage TV’s coverage of Allora & Calzadilla’s (Season 4) concurrent exhibitions at Kunstverein München and Haus der Kunst in Munich. Kunstverein München includes several installations of “geological bunkers” with hidden opera singers and musicians plying militaristic beats and crooning apocalyptic. Continuing to explore the politicization of music, the collaborative’s Haus der Kunst show offers Stop, Repair, Prepare: Variations on Ode to Joy for a Prepared Piano, a new performance work that scrutinizes the famous Ninth symphony and its shared history with the museum’s architecture and both their subsequent usurpation by the Nazis.
Berliner Salon: Sugimoto at the Neue and Street art in F-hain
As previously posted, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s retrospective opened today at the Neue National Galerie. Having seen the show in the context of Mies van der Rohe’s brilliantly minimal architectural monument, I can honestly say that Sugimoto’s work has never looked better. The installation is lovely and the clean lines of the Neue perfectly compliment the Japanese artist’s tendency for monochromatic refinement and pristine geometry.But, for those who are more interested in the lowbrow aesthetics of the public sphere, as opposed to the highbrow conceptualism of the institution, tomorrow marks the opening of the street art festival Urban Affairs, which will combine action painting, site-specific installation and original artwork by some of the graffiti genre’s most notorious activists. El Tono and Nano 4814, both of whom were recently commissioned by the Tate Modern to create large-scale on-site murals, will participate in the festival. Other notable urban artists on view include Dolk, El Bocho, Alias and Nomad, plus there will be an after party in the beer garden immediately adjacent to the venue, a converted former brewery located in the predominately punk neighborhood of Friedrichshain (F-hain) that boasts an unglaublich 900 sq. meters of exhibition space. Considering Berlin’s reputation as a graffiti mecca of the urban art world, this opening is not to be missed.In other news, there are fire works going off in Berlin right now, which is helping this American feel almost disturbingly at home. The American Embassy opened today after a prolonged construction coma and George Bush Senior himself is in town to do the inaugural honors, in an ironic nod to all of us Expats who left America to avoid the Bush family in the first place. Regardless, happy 4th of July! Schoenes Wochenende.
Hiroshi Sugimoto Retrospective in Berlin
Opening today, Neue Nationalgalerie presents the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto (Season 3) in what constitutes the Art21 artist’s most comprehensive retrospective exhibition in German-speaking countries. Berlin is the third stop for this traveling exhibition, which also goes to.Düsseldorf, Salzburg (Austria), and Luzern (Switzerland).
The exhibition consists of more than seventy photographs and a single sculpture. Sugimoto is planning an entirely different presentation of his work for Neue Nationalgalerie that will highlight relations to the Berlin collections, as well as the architecture of the Mies van der Rohe building. The exhibition is on view through October 5, 2008.
Collier Schorr: Freeway Balconies
Freeway Balconies, a group exhibition curated by Collier Schorr (Season 2) is on view July 5 through September 21, 2008 at Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin. The exhibition is “at once a self-portrait and a riveting display of some of the most vital trends in contemporary U.S.–based art.” Borrowing its title from the 1960s poet laureate Allen Ginsberg, Freeway Balconies refers to the meeting place of spectacle and voyeurism in American culture.
Schorr has gathered nineteen emerging and established artists, arranging their work around selections of her own work. The exhbition ranges in mediums from photography to sculpture, installation to video and, according to the website, explores “the performative impulse so operative in today’s innovative forms…Freeway Balconies is a roundtable discussion in exhibition form, addressing the problems that drive Schorr’s artmaking.”
A panel discussion including Schorr, Sara Gilbert, Herbert Molner, Adam Pendleton and Matt Saunders takes place on July 5 at 11 a.m. Panel members will discuss the core themes of the exhibition and the role of performance in contemporary art. The conversation is moderated by Dominic Eichler.
Berliner Salon: Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno at DAAD Galerie
The streets of Berlin have been unusually rowdy these past few weeks, with the screams of belligerent football fans reverberating off every wall. As is customary in this country, a home team victory is ceremoniously followed by bleary-eyed Germans taking to the streets, in their cars no less, and driving around drunk while laying on the horn, waving flags out their windows and yelling nonsense at any pedestrian unfortunate enough to be on the sidewalk at this historic hour. It’s “a cultural experience,” albeit slightly disturbing and undoubtedly dangerous, but soccer is a religion over here and this is how the locals worship. After Germany’s victory over Turkey last Wednesday, in a match-up that hit quite close to home considering the continuing controversy surrounding Turkish immigration in Deutschland (and especially in the country’s capital), Berliners are gearing up for the final game on Sunday and even the art world has been invaded by football fanaticism.
DAAD Galerie is currently showing a video by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno entitled Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, which follows the legendary French footballer’s every move with 17 cameras during a 2005 match against FC Villareal. The resulting portrait serves to further idolize Zinedine Zidane, a polarizing figure in the football world, whose final match- the 2006 World Cup championship game against Italy- will always be remembered for the notorious head-butting incident, in which Zidane attacked an opponent who had apparently disrespected his mother and/or sister, and was thrown out of the game. Depending on your perspective it was either staggeringly heroic or appallingly disgraceful.
Although there’s no head-butting in Gordon and Parreno’s piece, it is reminiscent of Paul Pfeiffer’s (Season 2) series The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which captured professional basketball players in iconic poses, illuminated by the court’s glaring lights, their bodies glowing in artificial halos surrounded by legions of followers. Similarly, Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait depicts the soccer star from the eyes of a fanatic, elevating a mere mortal to the ranks of the Gods. Whether or not you agree that these players deserve their deification, the fact remains that come Sunday, the entire city will be praying for some kind of divine intervention on the soccer field. The losers will be sacrificed and the winners will be immortalized. Regardless of the outcome, stay away from cross walks once the final whistle blows. Schoenes Wochenende.
1968 | 2008
This is not the first time that Summer Olympics Games are embroiled in environmental and political controversies. In 1968, Mexico City, with its high altitude containing 30% less oxygen than at sea level, proved to be a controversial choice. The lack of air led to terrible results for some, while others were able to achieve world records. Forty years later Beijing is faced with massive air pollution as it completes the preparations for the Olympics. The world renowned Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie has opted out of running in the marathon noting “the pollution in China” as a threat to his health. It remains to be seen how the environmental pollution in China will affect the athletes and the Games’ results.China is also plagued with its outrageous treatment of Tibet, resulting in massive protests around the world. Protest was also seen in Mexico City during the medal ceremonies when the two Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos “performed their Power to the People” salute. Peter Norman, the Australian silver medalist, wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge showing his support for Smith and Carlos.
Another athlete to cancel an Olympic Games participation was Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess players of all time, who passed away earlier this year. He had plans to play for the United States at the 1968 Chess Olympiad in Lugano, Switzerland and backed out when he saw the playing hall with its bad lighting.
As athletes were breaking records in 1968, artists were busy reshaping culture. Nancy Spero(Season 4) was working on her War Series (1966-70). Bruce Nauman (Season 1) produced his first video titled Pinch Neck. Romare Bearden, in addition to being involved in founding The Studio Museum in Harlem, also established Cinque Gallery with the help of Norman Lewis and Ernest Crichlow. Cinque provided support for younger minority artists.
1968 marked the passing of Marcel Duchamp and the coinage of “15 minutes of fame” when Andy Warhol stated “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Frank Zappa released his first solo album Lumpy Gravy and performed King Kong with the Mothers of Invention at BBC Studio in London. Chou Wen-chung, who had studied with Edgard Varese, completed Nocturnal (1961-1968), an unfinished piece by Varese.
In his 1968 Nobel Lecture, Yasunari Kawabata explained, “The excitement of beauty calls forth strong fellow feelings, yearnings for companionship, and the word ‘comrade’ can be taken to mean ‘human being.’ The snow, the moon, the blossoms, words expressive of the seasons as they move one into another, include in the Japanese tradition the beauty of mountains and rivers and grasses and trees, of all the myriad manifestations of nature, of human feelings as well.”
How will 2008 be reminisced forty years from now? What will be the low and high points in our cultural and social achievements? Will 2008 be a critical year marking a pivotal change in the way we treat the environment and each other?
China Haze. Credit. Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE
Jörg Heiser at Austrian Cultural Forum
On Wednesday June 25th at 7:00 p.m., the Goethe-Institut New York and the Austrian Cultural Forum will co-host a conversation between Jörg Heiser and Brian Sholis, editor at Artforum.com. The event will begin with the presentation of Heiser’s new publication titled All of a Sudden Things that Matter in Contemporary Art. Earlier this year Heiser’s writing also appeared in another book, Romantic Conceptualism, featuring the work of Collier Schorr (Art:21 Season 2, Loss & Desire). The photographs of Schorr are also included in the exhibition, History Will Repeat Itself Strategies of Re-enactment in Contemporary Art, originally opening at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin and now traveling to Goethe-Institut Hong Kong. For those who might not have visited the ACF building on 11 East 52nd Street, take the virtual tour on the menu to see the intriguing double-height theater located on the 2nd and 3rd floors. This narrow and dynamic building, designed by the Austrian born architect Raimund Abraham, is a poignant reflection of romantic conceptualism. The seating is limited to 80 and reservations for this free event can be made at 212-439-8691.
