ARTS AND BRANDS

Roy Ascott: Technoetics – transmedia art and the future

2011-08-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

Lecture/workshop by Roy Ascott at Xindanwei, Shanghai
August 21, 2011, 14:00 - 18:00

Roy Ascott is one of the pioneers of what we call new media art or tech art now. Since the 1960’s he was applying ideas of cybernetics and network theory in his artistic and pedagogic practice, which as he states are both closely connected. However his main interest is not directed at the hardware, but rather the ‘software’, one could say the spiritual aspects of new media, and how new modes of interaction can be used to open new ways of thinking and understanding the world – and approach summarized in his ‘Groundcourse’ methodology.

Even though the event was originally announced as a workshop, it happened to be a lecture. Professor Ascott gave a general self-presentation. First he started by outlining a theoretical background defining terms like cybernetics, technoetics and moist media. Then he continued by telling the story of his career, from early days as an art student to later experiences as an art professor at miscellaneous universities, including how he set up the ‘Groundcourse’ and how it was received at that time. Basically, you can read that story here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_ascott or in one of the references at the bottom of the wikipedia page.

I would say that the lecture was too broad and too general. There were interesting bits inside of the lecture, some insights and opinions, but keeping more focus would definitely benefit the overall picture. The lecture name seemed to have been chosen randomly. Dropping names of his ‘famous’ students gave the impression that there is not enough substance and this kind of ‘decoration’ is needed. Later on I realized that many of the lecture participants actually know professor Ascott because they are members of the Planetary Collegium research collective.. they must have heard these stories a number of times.

In the end, when professor Ascott wanted to conclude, the Chinese moderator actually asked for a ‘workshop’ as promised. Professor Ascott did not seem very excited about the idea, however, there was no escape as it was announced beforehand, so he tried to improvise and give instructions in a few sentences. Participants were to follow up on the ‘Groundcouse’ idea, work in groups and develop a ‘game’ where they would be acting as a single ‘body’ composed of single elements with unique restriction. Basically, all was possible and nothing forbidden. Most participants used it as a chance for discussion, or they did draw some images representing the collective ‘self’. The exercise in itself was not a bad idea, but it was a pity that professor Ascott showed no interest in facilitating this process and instead tapped away at his shiny Macbook. Maybe he was preparing his next presentation, or just checking e-mails, who knows.

On the whole, the lecture did provide some food for thought. It raised the question of the art-science relationship, and I found it interesting how professor Ascott linked cybernetic ideas with parapsychology and higher levels of consciousness, which reminded me of the guru in this domain - Timothy Leary. In addition to that, I find it always worthwhile to listen to eye witnesses who were there in the old days when ‘new media’ was still new

Avdej Ter-Oganjan vs. Jiri Cernicky: Artist talk with a sad conclusion.

2011-02-12T09:36:00.000-08:00

Avdej Ter-Oganjan @ tranzitdisplay, December 16, 2010 18:00

tranzitdisplay art space organized an artist talk with Avdej Ter-Oganjan, a Russian artist who was persecuted in Russia because of his controversial artworks which supposedly “instilled religious hatred and political unrest”. He lives in Czech Republic now, where he received political asylum. One of his trademark actions was destroying cheap icons (i.e. religious images) sold in abundance around and inside of Russian churches. Another artwork which made him famous was a series of abstract images, resembling modernist-style paintings, with descriptive captions based on quotes from the Russian law code featuring sentences which are often used as a means to censor artist expression like “this image calls for assassination of president Putin in order to destabilize the Russian state” or “this image calls for hatred against religion”. This artwork was selected by a French curator for the “Counterpoint, Contemporary Russian Art” exhibition in the Musée du Louvre (October 14, 2010 to January 31, 2011). The original artwork owned by a Russian institution (I am not sure which one) located in Moscow was sent to France, yet it was halted by customs authorities based on the descriptive caption (as mentioned above) which was part of it.

The authorities stepped into the ideological trap set by Ter-Oganjan and went on in censoring the images titled by descriptive sentences from the law code, even though the images themselves consisted only of abstract shapes and colors. This situation was reported in the media and created a public pressure to let the artworks reach their final destination – and that is what happened in the end.

Nevertheless, Ter-Oganjan was still not happy about the situation and decided to hijack created media publicity in order to bring his friends case to attention – Oleg Mavromatti, another Russian action artist who also was accused of instilling religious hatred and political unrest, but was less lucky than Ter-Oganjan in receiving political asylum. He is in danger of being deported back to Russia for trial. Hijacking the original problem (censorship of Ter-Oganjan’s works) and raising the issue of Mavromatti was a logical step for Ter-Oganjan, who probably feels closely connected to this fellow artist. Yet it was perceived negatively by other artists participating in the Louvre exhibition and by the exhibition organizers. Obviously, each of them were following their own interests and they were not able to reach a common language: Ter-Oganjan was trying to help his “partner in crime” (according to Russian accusations) Mavromatti. Other artists participating in the exhibition were trying to maximize the positive effects of the exhibition while staying away from the political problem of Mavromatti. Finally the exhibition organizers and official government representatives on both sides were doing their best to keep the existing status quo without causing damage to the inter-country relationships.

So far for the description of facts. During his talk at tranzitdisplay, Ter-Ogavjan spend quite a lot of time making all this clear, based on his point of view. Everyone interested in this topic can google though the articles on livejournal blogs or other sources. The interesting experience of this evening in tranzitdisplay was to see how the discussion evolved.

Not many people showed up for the discussion. Besides Ter-Oganjan and a translator, there was Tomas Vanek who was chairing the discussion (and who knew the whole background story beforehand). Another guest who voiced his opinion very strongly was Jiri Cernicky. (Both Vanek and Cernicky are mid-generation Czech artists, successful in the Czech scene with some international exposure as well).

A dialogue between Ter-Oganjan and Cernicky wa shaping the whole discussion. Ter-Oganjan stated that the only real art is avant-garde art and that avant-garde art - in his definition - is the art, which is in constant opposition to whatever the mainstream is representing. Cernicky, on the other hand showed a complete lack of understanding for Ter-Oganjan’s position. He kept asking if not-radical art is “art too”, giving examples how he gets pleasure from works dealing with aesthetic or formalist topics. He kept attacking Ter-Oganjan on his ‘radical’ proposition. Ter-Oganjan’s position was indeed radical – and hopelessly romantic in some sense. But both of them seemed to be having a separate conversation with themselves instead of listening to the other. Cernicky refused to see Ter-Oganjan’s position through the other’s eyes, and Ter-Oganjan was not able to address Cernicky’s position, although he did not dispute it.

There seemed to be a discontinuity between Ter-Oganjan and Cernicky, which could not be bridged. Given our recent communist past – Cernicky was born during communism and went to school during that time – it came to me as a very absurd moment. How easy it is to forget? How come that Cernicky was not able to grasp the context of Ter-Oganjan’s statements and standpoint?

Cernicky was content with himself, he has “seen it all, done it all”. His successful artist career allows him to enjoy his life, enjoy art, and consume. He has reached the safe harbor of capitalist consumerism and isn’t going anywhere else now – why should he. He enjoys the intellectual and formalist pleasures of art, but lacks an understanding of any other context than his own. He was questioning the meaning of radical Russian action art of the 80’s and 90’s – there was no understanding of the local situation and political context.

Ter-Oganjan is probably equally known and established in his artistic career. Yet his intellectual and artistic standpoint is still connected to his recent past and current situation in Russia. He experienced censorship and prosecution in his home country, and a discourse of conflict is central to his work. He appreciates art as a political and/or intellectual challenge to the status quo. Art is an agent causing movement and change. He does not question classical art history, but what he enjoys are attempts that are still trying to step out of the line instead of fit into it, for example recent actions of the group Voina.

In my view, different artistic approaches need different readings. Often, art can only be understood in its own historical and political context. In the context of today’s Central Europe, some of Russia’s action art from the 90’s or even recent actions of Voina do not seem to be anything else than meaningless stunts or teenage jokes, yet in the context of Russia in the time when these actions took place, I believe there is a value and meaning to them which cannot be disputed. There is also a difference in the nature of Russian and Czech art, and I don’t dare to judge what it is, but all kinds of circumstances need to be taken into account before an appropriate reading can take place.

The lack of empathy or understanding displayed by Jiri Cernicky was disappointing. This was especially sad given the not-so-distant connection between ex-Czechoslovakia and Russia. I myself did not experience censorship and ideological persecution and communism is just a distant childhood memory for me. Yet I am still aware of the problems in societies where freedom of speech is still an issue. I experienced the ‘u-turn’ in Czech thinking where the newly gained post-communist freedom resulted in a worshipping of U.S. and liberalist market economy, followed by an E.U.-optimist brainwashing. Obviously, there were historical reasons why Czech turned their backs to Russia. As a result the topic of Russia was almost skipped from my education and it is only now that I see a slow return to ‘normal’, or even a growing interest in Russia. I feel it is important that we do not forget our own past and that we do not overlook the ‘otherness’ of other’s lives. We are all humans, but in order to understand each other we must be aware and respectful of the different background we are coming from. Similarly, when we are reading artworks, the context of creation must be taken into account - especially different historical contexts and the fact that there are other local contexts besides western capitalist hegemony.

Josef Bares @ ARTYČOK.TV – ART FAIR

2010-11-29T15:34:00.000-08:00

December 2, 2010, 3pm - 11pm, MeetFactory, Ke Sklárně 15, Prague 5, Czech Republic

I would like to invite you to the "Artycok.TV Art Fair" in which I participate. It is a one-day event - an art fair - to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Artycok.TV.

Artycok.TV internet portal systematically informs the public on the current events from art scenes on both an international and local level. In collaboration with MeetFactory Gallery, Artyčok.TV – Art Fair will present works from a selection of the artists featured in the Artyčok.TV database.

I will be displaying 3 drawings that served as sketches to Secondness series, a highly valued work that received the Leinemann Award and was shown on the Moscow Biennale of Young Art. The drawings on display were also nominated for the Strabag Art Award this year. The second work on display will be a selection of video loops from Viewpoint series which was exhibited during the Graduates 2010 exhibition at the National Gallery Prague this summer. In addition, this will be the first time Viewpoint series flip-books will be presented in public.

Please follow this link for a preview of works on display:
http://www.c8400.com/josef.bares.name/media/josef_bares___artycok_tv_art_fair_dec_2_2010.pdf

Looking forward to seeing you at the "Artycok.TV Art Fair" on Thursday, Dec 2, 2010, 15:00-23:00!

Josef Bares & Viktor Valasek: Pozitivni okupace / Positive Occupation

2010-08-28T16:18:00.000-07:00

September 1 - September 12, 2010, Trafo Gallery, Kurta Konrada 1, Prague 9, Czech Republic

Opening on Tuesday, August 31, 2010, 7pm

(* český text níže pod anglickým textem / Czech text below English text )

Pozitivni Okupace (Positive Ocupation) is an exhibition dealing with hidden control and power relationships emerging in the social discourse when views of different cultures collide. The fundamental dichotomy lies in the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the notion how these terms are used within the given narrative. The illusion of a multicultural harmonic society is again and again broken within the very same framework of public discourse which support the illusion if one dares to apply an analytical approach. Alterity, a term coined by Emmanuel Levinas (Altérité et transcendence, 1995), captures the essence of this idea. The experience of the encounter with the other is seen is a privileged phenomenon in which the other person's proximity and distance are both strongly felt. Being aware of alterity means being aware of the construction of "cultural others". And only with awareness, a further step to overcoming national ideology and cultural demagogy can be made.

Josef Bares and Viktor Valasek draw from different backgrounds, yet their works come together at a point where different cultures cross each other. For both, the starting point was a movement across cultural zones, which triggered specific interests, yet lead back to the common denominator represented by the keyword “alterity”.

The loose topic for this exhibition are impressions from the Chinese-speaking area of Asia. Viktor Valasek recently returned from China and the impressions served as a conceptual input for the location specific wall-painting which will be part of the show. Josef Bares has a close relationship with Chinese culture for a longer time. For this show he prepared mixed media work based on photographs taken during the era of Japanese occupation of Taiwan.

The discussion about the work on display also became reflected in the name of the exhibition. Military occupation is always perceived as a strong act of aggression and the ideology surrounding it is a typical example of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ monologue, where the position of the other side (‘they’) is interpreted through the dominant ideology (‘us’) without allowing a voicing of any aberrant opinion. Thus, from a position of the ruling power, a military occupation is presented as a positive act.

By choosing the exhibition title, we are referring to the fact, that the ‘war goes on’ even in times of peace, but it shifts into the cultural sphere and it becomes much more subtle. As a metaphor, positive military occupation means reclaiming the mental space for all and counteracting the dominant social paradigm.

Josef Bares’ work keeps distance, yet goes under the skin at the same time. The experience of living is Asia brought a different perspective, which is included in his work. But instead of looking for exotic folklore, he focuses on common denominators. He deals with systems of signs which are universal, yet show local variants. The central interest lies on the system of signs present in architecture. Architecture is universal in it’s function, yet interpretations vary widely across locations. Josef Bares extracts a meta-language of architectural elements, structures and spaces based on his visual experience and transforms them into a universal vocabulary. For Josef Bares, being aware of alterity means focusing on the essence, filtering out any culturally-specific points of view.

Viktor Valasek’s work is more personal. He is not afraid to comment and depict his own surrounding, including cultural stereotypes and memories from his own nation’s collective consciousness. It is a view which is only possible after a person leaves his own culture and looks back from the ‘other’ location. At once, one feels trapped within his/her own stereotype. This is who I am. This is who I am expected to be. We are expected to conform to the view imposed by ‘them’ on ‘us’. Viktor Valasek is balancing on the edge between doing a good show – as ‘expected’ – and self-reflection. The ‘folklore’ – otherness - of Central European post communist contemporary art is the product which is delivered to the spectator, yet it comes with a self-critical edge. Is it myself, or is it the image of myself, as defined by others? For Viktor Valasek, alterity means stepping out of his own culture and looking back at it through the eye of the other.

***

Tématem výstavy Pozitivní okupace je skryté ovládání a silové vztahy vznikající v sociálním diskurzu ve chvílích, kdy se střetávají pohledy různých kultur. Základní dichotomie tkví v rozdílu mezi ‘námi’ a ‘jimi’ a ve způsobu, jak jsou tyto výrazy užívány v rámci daného narativu. Iluze multikulturní harmonické společnosti je znovu a znovu rozbíjena v rámci stejného veřejného diskurzu, který tuto iluzi podporuje, pokud se člověk odváží použít dostatečně analytické metody. Alterita, výraz známý z prací Emmanuela Levinase (Altérité et transcendence, 1995), zachycuje esenci této myšlenky. Zkušenost setkání s jiným (druhým) je viděna jako zásadní fenomén, ve kterém můžeme silně cítit jak blízkost, tak i vzdálenost druhé osoby. Být si vědom alterity znamená být si vědom konstruktu “kulturní jinakosti”. A pouze s tímto vědomím lze učinit další krok k překonání národní ideologie a kulturní demagogie.

Josef Bareš a Viktor Valášek čerpají z různých pozadí, avšak jejich práce se scházejí v momentu střetu různých kultur. Počátečním bodem pro oba byl pohyb napříč kulturními zónami, který vyvolal specifické zájmy, avšak nakonec vedl nazpět ke společnému jmenovateli representovaným klíčovým slovem “alterita”.

Volným námětem této výstavy jsou dojmy z čínsky mluvící části Asie. Viktor Valášek se nedávno vrátil z Číny a jeho dojmy se staly konceptuálním vstupem pro místně specifickou nástěnnou malbu, jenž bude součástí výstavy. Josef Bareš má těsný vztah s čínskou kulturou již po delší dobu. Pro tuto výstavu připravil instalaci kombinující různá média, jenž je založená na fotografiích pořízených během Japonské okupace Tchaj-wanu.

Diskuze o pracích, jenž jsou součástí výstavy se také odrazila v jejím názvu. Okupace je vždy vnímána jako silně agresivní akt a ideologie, jenž ji obklopuje je typickým příkladem monologu “my a oni”, kde pozice druhé strany (“oni”) je interpretována skrze dominantní ideologii (“my”) bez možnosti vyjádření jakéhokoliv odlišného názoru. Z pozice vládnoucí síly, je okupace prezentována jako pozitivní čin.

Výběrem názvu výstavy odkazujeme na skutečnost, že válka pokračuje i v dobách míru, avšak přesouvá se do kulturní sféry a stává se daleko důvtipnější. Jako metafora, pozitivní okupace představuje znovuzískání mentálního prostoru pro všechny a působení proti dominantnímu sociálnímu paradigmatu.

Práce Josefa Bareše si zachovávají odstup, avšak současně pronikají i pod kůži. Zkušenost života v Asii mu přinesla jinou perspektivu, jenž je obsažena v jeho práci. Avšak místo hledání exotického folkloru se soustředí na společné jmenovatele. Zabývá se systémy znaků, jenž jsou univerzální, avšak existují v lokálních variantách. Hlavní pozornost se soustředí na systém znaků obsažený v architektuře. Architektura je univerzální ve své funkci, avšak místně specifické interpretace se značně odlišují. Josef Bareš extrahuje metajazyk architektonických elementů, struktur a prostorů na základě vizuální zkušenosti a přetváří ho do univerzální slovní zásoby. Být si vědom alterity pro Josefa Bareše znamená soustředit pozornost na esenci, a odfiltrovávání jakýchkoliv kulturně-specifických úhlů pohledu.

Práce Viktora Valáška jsou více osobní. Nebojí se komentovat a zobrazovat své vlastní okolí, včetně kulturních stereotypů a vzpomínek ze společného vědomí jeho vlastního národa. Tento druh pohledu je možný pouze po tom, co člověk opustí svojí vlastní kulturu a podívá se zpět z ‘jiné’ lokace. Najednou vzniká pocit, že je polapen ve svém vlastním stereotypu. Toto jsem já. Toto je ten, od něhož je očekáváno, že to jsem já. Je očekáváno, že přijmeme pohled, kterým se na ‘nás’ dívají ‘oni’. Viktor Valášek balancuje na hraně mezi dobrou show – jak je ‘očekáváno’ a sebereflexí. ‘Folklor’ – jinakost – současného umění z postkomunistické střední Evropy je produkt poskytovaný divákovi, avšak přichází se sebekritickým nádechem. Jsem to já, nebo to je obraz mne, definovaný jinými? Pro Viktora Valáška, alterita znamená postavení se vně vlastní kultury a pohlížení zpět skrze oči druhého.

Graduates 2010, featuring Viewpoint Series by Josef Bares

2010-06-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

June 23 - August 1, 2010, National Gallery, Veletrzni Palace, Dukelskych hrdinu 47, Prague

Let me invite you the the Graduates 2010 - graduate student's of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague that is - diploma works exhibition. My latest works "Viewpoint series" and "Viewpoint series interpretation" are featured.

I would like to thank Changhong Europe for their generous support of my artwork.

Marketa Kubacakova & Andran Abramjan: Natural Reserve

2010-01-19T12:51:00.000-08:00

January 19 - February 20, 2010, Trmalova vila, Vilova 11, Prague

The art project takes the form of a site-specific installation, reacting to the environment of the exhibition space, it’s historical and artistic context. Trmalova Villa is a family residence built by Jan Kotera, one of the key figures initiating Czech modern architecture around the turn of the 19th/20th century. The break away from the classical style had two sides. On one hand it meant an embracing of new artistic concepts (like cubism for example) and transferring them into architectural matter. On the other hand it meant embracing Czech folklore like the local, ‘original’ alternative to the international style of classicist architecture. The emphasis on floral and geometric ornaments was also typical for symbolism/art deco, drawing on the fascination with both ‘local’ and exotic cultures (as the oriental inspiration from Japanese woodcuts).

Yet folklore as a form of art soon became an endangered species, threatened by modern industrial society – engineering and functionality took the lead soon. This is a fate which folklore shared with one of its frequent motives – flowers and plants. Marketa Kubacakova & Andran Abramjan drew a parallel between this two worlds, treating Trmalova Vila (today a protected cultural heritage site) as a natural reserve which is home to a rare species of ‘plants’. A walking path was set up and labels explaining the natural phenomena to which attention should be paid to – similar like you have on a hiking path in a natural reserve area - were put in place. The labels were directing attention to the rare plants of the local flora, which were present in the ornaments and interior architecture elements of the building.

When entering the house the visitors are basically entering a museum. But after wandering around for a while, they start to realize that there is a discrepancy, that there are actually two kinds of labels, two kinds of displays. One type of labels are the ‘museum labels’ attached to the actual displays. Another set of labels explains the ‘local flora’, giving advice how to spot the rare natural occurrences. In a corner of one of the rooms, there is a TV, which seems to be showing some documentary movie. Actually, it is a documentary movie about the ‘flora’ of Trmalova Vila. If some less attentive visitor did not get the idea of the artistic intervention until now, this is the last push, which should make it clear to everyone what is going on here. The tone of the video is kept serious and entertaining at the same time, as National Geographic videos are.

I like the idea of putting another layer to the ‘dead’ museum exhibit. The house itself, originally a functional element, was put into a ‘reserve’. It no longer serves it original function, it turned into a ‘ghost house’. Now Marketa Kubacakova & Andran Abramjan are bringing life back to it. The staircase becomes a waterfall, the wall decoration a rare night flower, the last of its kind. The intervention shows once again the know fact that all of our perception and thinking is contextual. It is the framing that decides what we see and how we understand out environment. In addition to that the artwork addresses the social dimension of ‘preserving’ our heritage, contemplating how society treats both culture and nature. It shows how close these two elements actually are related and that they are actually one in the way society approaches them.

Antoni Muntadas: Public City (MIT Visual Arts lecture)

2010-01-18T13:55:00.000-08:00

The city as a public space. Quite an overstated phrase, isn’t it? But it keeps occupying people’s minds. Why? Cities have become the second nature for most of us – citizens. Cities are spaces where we are born, where we live, where we die. Our lives are shaped by the cities we live in. Citizens are the ‘users’ of the city, yet much too often, their influence, their voice in shaping the city is minimal. The city is all sliced up into little pieces of privately owned land. Yes, there is a city council, there is an urban plan. But the city mayors can be hardly seen as independent decision makers. In the worst case, decisions are approved according to economic power of influencers. In the best case, decisions reflect the political and socioeconomic relationships of the time (which of course include the first category as well).

Antoni Muntadas in an artist whose main topic is the city with its social, economic and historical power relationships. As a part of the ‘City as Stage, City as Process’ lecture series at MIT Visual Arts, Muntadas gave this lecture, starting with setting a historical context, introducing a series of his own words and finishing with an interesting discussion.

I must say it was the answers to the open questions raised in the end of the lecture convinced me of body of work Muntadas did. I also liked his answer to the question what feedback he gets, comparing the difference of the gallery space and public space. Public space project are mainly process (project) focused, and it is the way of reaching the goal and the change in passers-by perception which are important. Yet none of these variables can be measured in terms of ‘success’ or ‘visitor reaction’. While the artwork is ‘public’ the reactions are probably more private than in the case of a gallery piece.

http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/4278-antoni-muntadas---public-city

Prague Biennale 2009

2009-08-16T02:37:00.000-07:00

Factory Hall in Karlin, Prague 8, May 14 – July 26 2009

I hesitated to put this review on-line for some time, because it’s so negative. But let’s face reality.

It’s time for another Prague Biennale, this year number 4. Once again sponsored by Matonni mineral water and once again it is located in the same old factory hall in Karlin. This year a special sub-section Prague Biennale Photo was added to the show.

My guess about how this exhibition came about goes like this. Politi and Kontova (the organizers, managers, owners and curators of Prague Biennale) invited befriended and likeminded co-curators who then in turn invited befriended and likeminded artists to take part. The result is that although the show is subdivided into partial themes, this partial themes are only vaguely distinguishable. The whole show ended up with much too many sub-sections. The result is typical for situations when no-one is really in control. The impression of the whole show is then something between a low-budget art fair and vegetable market. One fact we should not forget that the Prague Biennale 4 budget wasn’t in fact much higher that of a vegetable farmer’s. In this perspective, we should be grateful that this Prague Biennale 4 did take place at all. But should we really? A biennale withhout a budget but still boasting with more than 230 artists?

I wonder whether Prague Biennale 4 caused more pain than gain. This is always hard to say when you consider the work and time someone put into it, but for me, it just did not work. There is virtually nothing I remember from this show. There were many interesting artist’s taking part. But the selection and the presentation destroyed any kind of feeling one could have. The installation quality varied substantially, from well framed and placed canvases to a couple of inkjet prints pasted onto cardboard which looked more like a presentation of an amateur workshop’s results. I know sometimes it’s on purpose, but this did not seem to be the case here.

I remember last Prague Biennale when I was horrified by pigeons flying around and defecating straight onto the artworks. This did not happen so far, but otherwise not much changed since the last PB. Even the crappy TV sets stayed the same. The space is a bit of a problem too I think. It’s industrial and run-down ambience benefits some works but harms others.

If I have to look for a little bright spot in this vast darkness, then it was the sub-section dedicated to photography. The curators did a good job with selecting the artworks. It is the only in this part that I felt the selection was really representing a distingushable standpoint of the curator. It was regionally delineated, but the selection was also following a given inner logic which made this part of the exhibition ‘readable’ – the whole was worth more than a sum of its parts.

Apart from photography, ‘the rest’ of the show consisted up to 90 percent of paintings (canvases). Few sculptures, very few videos or spacial installations. Each artist was represented by aproximately one to three artworks. Often it was one piece only. The single artworks lacked context and rarely ‘connected’ to each other. One of the few thigs I remember was the annoying sound of the few videos filling the entire space of the factory hall.

Works I remember were that one’s which managed to create a space of their own. This was the case with Sigalit Landau’s ‘Barbed Hula’ videoinstallation – a room with beach sand on the floor and a naked women spinning a barbed wire hula hoop around her waist - and another small space designed by Kassa Boys – consisting of a performance video and props used in the video creating a continuation of the video in real space. Gulliermo Santamarina’s ‘Frei Von Jedem Schaden!’ was an eye-catching piece too – a plasterboard wall with vinyl records stuck into it in dynamic angles. Or Entang Wiharso’s ‘Unspeakable Victim’ which has a ‘post-collonial’ feel to me – metal reliefs with images that seemed to refer to some kind of animalistic non-European myths. This piece too succeeded in gaining my attention by being able to conquer a space of its own.

For most of the paintings, they were totally lost in the long long line of paintings placed on the wooden panels which were winding through the whole exhibition space. Actually this might be the reason why the photography part seemed more interesting to me. For photos, this is a more custromary way of presentation – series of one next to the other. But it was much more difficult to succeed for paintings in this kind of environment. I just remembered one artist who had some small geometrical drawings on transparent paper, which he put up on a small shelf – again it was the installation that made it stand out. I think the artist was Jiri Thyn, but I’m not sure. Overall, the section dedicated to Czech contemporary art curated by Jiri Kovanda and Edith Jerabkova, left a good impression on me. But I also suspect it is caused by the fact that I have the more background information on the artists in this section, so it was easier to ‘read’ the context. But as with the other sections, even this part did not go much further than the selection of likeminded artists in the given geographical area.

On the whole, the Prague Biennale 4 was a disappointment. I think its troubles can be traced back to a couple of factors. First, Politi and Kontova might do a better job by focusing on the management side and hiring a lead curator who could unite the overall concept and give clear directions to curators of individual sections. Second, the problems fall back to a lack of budget. But this should be solved by less quantity and more quality and not the other way around. Third, the space might be not so well suited. Errecting makeshift unpainted panels in a old factory hall and nailing paintings to them gives it a ‘punk’ feeling wich does not really resonate with all of the exhibiting artists. Many artworks just totally loose their power when put up in such a huge space.

Harun Farocki at tranzitdisplay, Prague

2009-08-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

tranzitdisplay (www.tranzitdisplay.cz), Prague, May 27 – August 30, 2009

The Harun Farocki exhibition in tranzitdisplay is small, but refreshing. Each of the tree rooms are used for the presentation of one work: Schnittstelle/Interface (1995), Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik/Workers Leaving the Factory (2006) and On the Construction of Griffith’s Films (2006). From this three works, Interface is the connection point between the two other works and probably for this reason it is also located in the central room of the exhibition space.

I first went to see Workers Leaving the Factory, a piece spread on 11 TV monitors. Yet after seeing Interface, the impact of the piece was much stronger, because Interface gave some context to Workers Leaving the Factory. One reason might have been the date of creation, where Interface is the departure point for Workers Leaving the Factory. But more generally, I think Interface is a wonderful piece in the sense, that it changes the way you see any other video work. It is a work about work. An edit about editing. The piece is about 20-30 minutes but if you watch the whole, it is worth it. It also features snippets of other Farocki’s works, like the above mentioned Workers Leaving the Factory, or Videograms of a revolution (which is not present in the exhibition but was shown on a separate screening in the Municipal Library).

Interface is a about editing video. It is about the technical process of constructing virtual (TV) reality. The uniqueness of Farocki is in his ability to balance the technical and ideological aspects of the medium he is researching and working with it at the same time. On the Construction of Griffin’s Films for example is a very analytical piece. It could as well take the form of a research paper published in a scholarly journal about motion pictures. It is very detached and descriptive. It deconstructs the subjects into parts, making their relationships visible. Workers Leaving the Factory is more politically charged. It is also descriptive, but in the selection of film samples it includes a political standpoint, analysing the relationship between film as a medium and people who participate both as objects of representation and agents of change. Interface shows the mutual connection between technology and society. In education or professional use, technology and its social impact are often separated. People learn how to use equipment ‘correctly’. Social impacts stay often unsaid, only implied as a possibility. Socially conscious and educated people on the other hand often have just a marginal understanding of actual technologies. They are trapped as ‘users’, not able to articulate their message through the new media without looking outdated.

In Farocki’s work the intersection between technology and ideology is the biggest contribution. I remember how refreshing it was to see Farocki’s piece on the Shanghai Biennale last year. Between many artworks which were hardly able to reflect their own medium they use, ending up as ‘pictures’. Farocki’s work stood out. It is sometimes quite simple (visually) and ‘old school’, but it has a clear standpoint, and it makes sense.

Private Distance: Lukáš Machalický, Jan Pfeiffer

2009-08-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

Meet Factory (www. meetfactory.cz), Prague, June 6 – July 23 2009

Machalicky and Pfeiffer did a short-term exhibition in one of the studios of Meet Factory, a studio and exhibition space located on the outskirts of Prague. The general idea dealt with in the exhibition was the perception of architecture and urban space. The first thing I enjoyed when I entered the space was its emptiness. Single artworks were placed in carefully selected places, not interfering with each other.

There was one completely dark room with drawings in light boxes on the wall. Only the think lines of the drawings were visible. According to the provided text, these drawings were drawn with eyes closed, in complete darkness. They show memories, imagined realities. Subjective maps. Images arising out of the deep dark places in our minds.

The second space featured two videos. One of an architectural structure – an outline/blueprint – placed in the middle of a burning fire, all in black and white, in a loop, the architectural, man-made “order” and the natural “chaos” constantly mixing but never interacting with each other. The other video was based on drawings, drawings of how a city (Sofia) might look like, without seeing it. A continually re-modeled imaginary model.

Both the dark room and this video had the common feature of referring to imagination: The dark room referring to the imagination of the (known) past, the drawing video referring to the imagination of the unknown (to be seen in the future). The past consisted of blurred images, simple line drawings made by a shaking hand. The future on the other hand seemed clearer, drawn in right proportions according to the principles of perspective. Seemed as if our dreams and visions are shattered once they meet reality. What is left are flickering shadows of our past experience. Maybe this ambiguity was expressed in the video - fire flames and geometrical structure - located between these two works. The irreconcilable conflict between our imagination – utopia – and nature/reality.

The third space of the exhibition featured a work by Lukas Machalicky. It consisted of three quasi-light boxes – flat metal reliefs lit from behind. They were located in the front, the middle and the back of the room. I understood the main theme as an analysis of the relationship between distance and patterns in space. On entering the exhibition, the light box the closest to the viewer showed a rather abstract pattern – taken from the lights and shadows on a façade of a house. The mid-distance light box showed a vision-testing pattern which the doctor uses to test sight. The most distant light box showed a pattern which looked something like a gas mask filer to me. Later I found out it was supposed to represent a urinal. The point of this installation was the reversal of scale – the object which was supposed to be close was distant and the object which was supposed to be distant was close. I was not so sure about the choice of the tree motives as they seemed to take the work in different directions – urban space (architecture motive), sight itself (sight-testing pattern), and daily experience (urinal). The interaction between Pfeiffer’s and Machalicky’s contribution was one between imagination and reality. So daily experience is the direction of choice I guess. What impressed me about this installation was how perfectly it was done technically. The machine-cut metal sheets and equally-lit light boxes looked perfect.

On the whole I really appreciated this exhibition. I appreciated the set framework and connections between the pieces. On one hand Pfeiffer’s works were mutually interconnected. On the other hand the whole collection of his works was interconnected with Machalicky’s piece. It was a wonderful example of symbiosis. It’s a pity the exhibition was not on for a long time and has finished already. To make up for that, I provide a video walk-through below.

Secondness (phase 2) / Secondness (fáze 2)

2009-06-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

Perception. Meaning creation. Urban environment. Systems of signs. Secondness (phase 2) is based on semiotic theories of the sign, respectively a sub-group of them, linguistics. In the same way we read text, we can “read” any other values which we are able to perceive.

I would like to invite you to see the result of this year’s work at the Academy of Fine Arts Prague (address: U Akademie 4, Praha 7). Open from June 9 – June 19, 2009, every day 10:00 – 18:00. My work is located on the underground (-1) floor in room #23.

more information about the work here

***

Vnímání. Vznik významu. Prostředí města. Architektura. Znakové systémy. Projekt Secondness (fáze 2) vychází z sémiotických teorií znaku, či jejich podskupiny, ligvististiky. Stejně jako čteme text, můžeme „číst“ jakékoliv hodnoty, jenž jsme schopni vnímat.

Rád bych Vás pozval na prohlídku letošní práce na Akademii Výtvarných umění v Praze (adresa: U Akademie 4, Praha 7). Otevřeno od 9.6. do 19.16.2009, každý den 10:00 – 18:00. Moje práce je v podzemním podlaží, místnost č.23.

Více informací o práci zde

'In Spectrum of Variety': Boštík, Boudník, Grygar, Kmentová, Kolíbal, Kučerová, Malich, Nepraš, Sopko, Svobodová, Šimotová

2009-05-24T13:47:00.000-07:00

City Gallery Prague, Golden Ring House, Prague, Apr 1 – June 28, 2009

The exhibition puts a good selection of works of important Czech artists of the post-war generation on display. All of the exhibits come from the gallery’s own collection. Each artist (Boštík, Boudník, Grygar, Kmentová, Kolíbal, Kučerová, Malich, Nepraš, Sopko, Svobodová, Šimotová) is given a part of the gallery space. The medieval building which houses the gallery is well suited for this kind of arrangement as it consists of a chain of smaller rooms. Yet the space also gives a bit of a cramped impression – it’s definitely not a white cube. There is a short introduction and one or two photoportraits displayed for each artist next to his works. This serves well as it gives you a better sense of orientation. And what does the ‘+1’ in the exhibition title stand for? It stands for Brabec, the photographer of the photo-portraits accompanying every artist’s introductory information.

The artists are well-known in the czech context. The most interesting in the sense of new - for me - were some drawings and sketches of authors who are more famous for their scultptural works, like Kolíbal or Malich.

I wondered what the impression would be like if this is a visitors first encounter with these artists or czech art from the 1960s - 1980s period in general. As a unknowing visitor, the first thing that would strike me is the „private“ feel to many of the works. Private in the sense of subject matter – many of the works refer to everyday personal experience or feelings. Private also in the sense of small size – the dimensions of the works rarely surpass 1 meter. Within this broadly defined subject, aproaches and interests differ: Everyday objects for Svobodová, the body for Šimotová, corroded walls and metal for Boudník, „energy fields“ percieved by Malich, etc. As a visitor new to Czech art, I would wonder how this came about. One explanation could lie in the nature of the collection – the museum might have been restricted by its budget or exhibition space. But I might offer another explanation.

The career of these artists unfolded during communist rule and they did not belong to the official/officially supported artists. They were surviving. They were doing what they were doing because of their inner conviction. They did not produce for the art market. There was none. They had no comissioned works. Public tenders were handed out according to political and not artistic merit. I think this situation is well illustrated in the photo showing Sopko in his studio – his kitchen. There is a cooker on one side, a kitchen table and two chairs. In the corner a stack on canvases is propped against the wall. I think it is key to consider this historical context when looking at the works. They were created in a time not in favor of art or any kind of free expression. They were created out of personal drive and belief. This makes them very strong in my view. It also helps to compare them to paralel developments in western arts - Malich and Calder, finding pop-art influences in Kmentová’s work, etc. The works on display were created in a diffferent world. Yet there was interaction. The works on display are an outcome of distant influences as much as of the immediate historical situation and personal experience. They are universal in their topics yet they carry the circumstances which helped to form them within.

Seeing these works in historical perspective is a rewarding experience. It creates a personal relartionship with the authors and a deeper understanding. I did not see any metion of this historical perspective in the show. Maybe its in the catalogue which I did not have a look at. I feel its a quite essential piece of information. On the other hand the „small size“ perception is not entirely true. Think of Karel Nepraš’ scultptures or Aleš Veselý’s monumental sculptures (Veselý is not present on this show). This is good to mention to avoid the trap of confusing the piece for the whole. This is one of the problems of the show. I also missed representatives of new forms of expression – like Mlčoch and Štembera for performance/body art or Kovanda for conceptual art. The show is pretty much constructed around traditional forms of expression – painting, sculpture, graphics. It should be acknowledged that in a selection of 10 authors it is hard to represent the whole period. After visiting the show, there are some questionmarks left, but maybe it is even good like that. But it would be nice to include some signs to direct the search for answers in the right direction.

Videoart: Filip Černý

2009-05-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

Prague City Gallery, Old Town Hall, Old Town Square, Prague, May 13, 2009 – Jul 26, 2009

Filip Černý is a young emerging Czech artist. ‘Videoart’ is his solo show on the 2nd floor of the Old Town Hall, a gallery space managed by the Prague City Gallery.

The first impression given by the exhibition title seems to be that it operates in a simple descriptive mode – videoart in the same sense as painting or sculpture. But that is a mistake. For Černý ‘videoart’ is much more than a description of the medium. On the contrary, it is the departure point for a complex array of subjects. Černý tackles problems of representation, media, technology and their impact on the viewer. He is working in the medium of painting, yet his paintings refer to non-painterly realities. There is an illusion of space, yet it is not a threedimensional perspective space. It is the layered space of virtual environments and digital representations of reality – of media which exert oneself as more real than real.

The viewer watching the out-of-focus image of a forest expects that the auto-focus function of the camera will ‘correct’ the mistake and deliver the ‘reality’. Yet it never happens. This is a painting. The time is frozen still. We are caught in the timeless space of our doubt. We can feel the proximity of the ‘real’ yet we cannot get hold of it. The auto-focus is broken.

Other paintings are of the ‘layered’ kind. Like a pseudo-spatial simulation in Photoshop. The space is palpable, yet it is not there. What is ‘infront’ and what is ‘behind’. What is a ‘real’ photo and what is shaded vector? One painting takes this questioning even further. Two depictions of light switches on canvas are cut out from the canvas and pasted next to the canvas in one row with the ‘real’ light switch. A row of five light switches emerges. One is ‘really real’ two are ‘really’ painted and another two are shadows left behind in their outline only. The transition from ‘real’ to ‘virtual’ is complete.

The upper room of the gallery is used to represent one single project – the walls are covered by 19 round-shaped paintings of buttons/nipples. All of the paintings have exactly same dimensions and compositions. They differ in the nature of the depicted nipple. The high number makes them look almost like the buttons of some mysterious machine. Or as a personal information database. Bodies as parts. People as parts. Inventory. Repetition. Pleasure. The connotations are multiple, yet they all converge on the broad array of contemporary corporate media and representations of reality, in this case representations of the human body.

Černý’s work is thoroughly based in our experience and the reality of media – mediated reality. He is able to get hold of this subject and work with it within the confines of his chosen medium. This exhibition comes as a refreshing surprise, communicating topics which are of general interest.

Undercurrent: Jiří Straka, Martin Eder, Jonathan Meese, Josef Bolf

2009-05-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

Gallery Rudolfinum, Prague, May 7, 2009 – Aug 16, 2009

The show displays recent works of four middle-aged artists, three painters and one sculptor. “What all of the artists have in common is a firm basis of deeply understood and mainly experienced history of European culture and the artistic legacy with which they work.” – says the official PR text of the gallery. For me the keywords for this exhibition were classical (technique) and fantasy (subject matter). Each of these keywords can be elaborated further.

The classical techniques of representation used by the authors is what the above mentioned quote is referring to as the “European culture and artistic legacy”. Each of the authors aproaches the problem of technique from a different angle. Eder’s chiaroscuro oil painting refers to the classic realist tradition dating back all the way to renaissance. Straka utilizes the technique of chinese ink painting, creating a intercultural tension. Meese draws on the centuries long figurative tradition of European sculpture. Bolf is most ambiguous in his approach to technique and so can be percieved as the most innovative. His technique originates from painting, yet he adss color crayons or scratches the paint at some points.

In the depicted subject matter the fantastical, magical and dream-like seems to serve as the common ground. Surrealism and its main topics was definitely a source for all of the authors. Yet the approaches differ.

Meese’s sculptures keep the general volumes of known objects – animal and human bodies, busts, etc. Yet they are morphed in un-real ways. They are a cross-breed between aboriginal art – emphasising symbols of fertility and sex – and science fiction – depicting human-alien-machine mutations. The sculptures are pointing in both future and past direction. (Of course is is a question, whether it makes any sense to talk about directions in a postmodern, timeless, world.). One can hear the echo of H.R.Giger’s work, but there is a deeply organic and primitive feel on the other hand.

Eder’s paintings come closest to the tradition of magical realism. Realistic yet not real. Like dreams. Some painting’s real feel is put into a new context by certain details: Two furry kitties, colourful butterflies – a typical cheap kitsch kitchen decoration – yet instead of a blue sky and green meadow, there are moon-lit clouds in the background. You have seen all this before. Yet the transpositions give rise to a new kind of reality. Eder seemed to represent the most ‘classical’ position of the 4 artists in the end. Both the form and subject matter could be clearly placed into the European tradition of painting. This took away some of the ‘surprise’ factor, but it did not diminish the facinating dream-like state emanating from the works.

Straka’s use of Chinese ink painting makes him stand out. Even the “European culture and legacy” refered to above is used in a different way. The technique and subject are swapped with regard to the heritage they draw on. The European lineage is followed in the depicted subject matter. The expressivity and referrals to death / vanitas give the paintings a late baroque feel. Dead animals, insects and inner organs seem to be the antithesis to the chinese-buddhist tradition of harmony with oneself and nature, respect for all living beings. Yet even in the chinese context, they represent the tension between earthly reality and scholarly philosophy/religion. I am not aware whether there is any moment is Chinese art with a similar array of meaning as vanitas in the christian tradition – a reminder of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. The formal aspect is connecting Staka’s works to the Chinese tradition. It makes it difficult to compare Straka with the other “European” artists. The inherent tension between the subject and form/technique, the east-west tension is at the core of Straka’s work.

Bolf surprised with a brand new series of paintings, all dated 2009. The paintings are all set in the architectural space of a primary/secondary school: A classroom with little chairs, a dressing room, a canteen... Yet in Bolf’s depiction, it is a memory-turned-nightmare. Among torn-apart human and animal body parts, a male and female survivor are reeling around, bleeding. Compared to Eder, the painting technique is less classical/realistic. It has a more rough feel, consistent with the rough subject matter of the imagery. The resulting impression is somewhere between surrealism, horror and hentai manga.

Bolf’s work had the strongest impact in terms of engagig the viewer. Maybe it was caused by the density – they covered most of the walls, you were surrounded by them. Maybe it was caused by relating to the viewer’s past memories – the school environment depicted is a part of our common memory. Maybe it was caused by the freshness and same subject matter of all the paintings. Bolf’s paintings came most close to a spacial installation.

The gallery outline which placed each artist into a separate room created the impression of four loosely connected solo shows, which was quite suitable. I cannot imagine the paintings hanging next to each other, as each author wraps them in its own, quite unique aura. The exhibition showed clearly the positions of each of the painters. Bolf was impressive, yet in the context of his other work not so surprising. Eder showed a mixture of paintings, representing the last cca 4 years of his work, which mainly served to remind us of his known qualities. Meese’s sculptures fit in in the exhibition context, yet they were most remote from my personal taste. Straka’s painting’s created a very refreshing feel though the tension between form and subject matter. He is probably the biggest surprise of this show.

James Turrell – Atlan a další světelné instalace / Atlan and other light installations

2009-02-21T10:27:00.000-08:00

English abstract: This paper is discussing James Turrell’s light installations, notably the installation called Atlan (1995) and others of the same group of works. After describing the visual and cognitive impact on the viewer, the author sets out to position Turrell’s work in the historical and philosophical context of discourse on vision. Futher a brief reference to the art-historical context is given.

Český abstrakt: Tato práce se zabývá světelnými instalacemi Jamese Turrella, především instalací Atlan (1995) a dalšími příbuznými instalacemi. Po popisu vizuálního a kognitivního dopadu díla na diváka, se autor věnuje zařazení Turrellova díla do filosofického a historického kontextu diskuzu o vidění. Dále je uveden stručný odkaz na umělecko-historický kontext.

Práce James Turrella jsou díly v prostoru, avšak nejedná se o objekty. I když mají podobu instalace, tím, co působí na diváka není nic hmatatelného, ale prostor a barva samotná.

Při prvním spatření díla vám vaše oči sdělují, že se nacházíte v prázdné šeré místnosti. Na jedné ze stěn je umístěn obdélník natřený zářivou fialovomodrou barvou. Při delším pohledu zjistíte, že barva obdélníku pozvolna pulzuje. Přistoupíte blíže. Barva vyzařující z obdélníku umístěného na zdi ve výšce očí se vyznačuje naprostou homogenitou. Po další chvíli pozorování vám začne docházet, že obdélník není obdélníkem umístěným za zdi, ale je oknem do dalšího prostoru, prostoru vyplněného naprosto jednolitou barvou, velmi pomalým tempem pulzující mezi fialovou a tvamomodrou. Vztáhnete k „obrazu“ ruku, snažíte se uchopit to, co vidíte, ale zjištujete, že prostor na druhé straně se zdá být nekonečný.

James Turrell svá díla buduje na důkladné znalosti fungování lidských vjemů a pracuje s vnitřními emocemi bez toho, aby využíval kulturních odkazů. Turrellova díla působí stejně na diváka ať přichází odkudkoliv. Neodkazují k sociální zkušenosti či historické paměti, odkazují pouze k sytému vnímání jako takovému. Tajemnost a počáteční nepochopitelnost vyzývají k mystické interpretaci díla. Autor modeluje prapočátky percepce, poukazuje na naše univerzální zkušenosti, na to, co se odehrává každou sekundu našeho života avšak zůstává právě proto nepovšimnuto. Prožitek, který dílo divákovi poskytuje se vztahuje k existenci jako takové, neboť pomáhá redefinovat vztah mezi objektem a subjektem pozorování. Divák se najednou nachází ve vzduchoprázdnu. Zjištuje, že to co vidí, nebo lépe, to co si myslí, že vidí, není nic. Nic ve smyslu ničeho, co by se dalo interpetovat a zařadit do zkušenosti každodenního světa. Nic ve smyslu absence jakékoliv signifikace. Jedná se pouze o barvu. V naší zkušenosti by barva měla náležet určitému fyzickému objektu či přírodnímu úkazu. Zde se však barva volně vznáší v prostoru, bez toho, aby byla čímkoliv omezená. Ani prostor se nezdá být ničím omezený. Jediným omezením je divákovo zorné pole.

Mimo aspektu vjemového můžeme u Turrellova díla indentifikovat několik dalších významových rovin, které je úvádějí do kontextu vizuální kultury. Dílo pracuje s kombinací „starých“ a „nových“ módů vnímání. Na první pohled se dílo tváří jako klasický obraz: Obdélníkové pole umístěné ve výšce očí. Toto je předpoklad, který si divák vytváří na základě prvního spontánního dojmu. V reakci na tento předpoklad se divák začne chovat daným způsobem: Pozoruje dílo z dálky, pak přistoupí k dílu blíže, zkoumá ho z různých uhlů pohledu, snaží se rozeznat materiál či povrchovou strukturu díla. Snaží se najít indicie, které mu pomohou dílo zařadit do kontextu toku obrazů, se kterými se během svého života setkal. Po chvíli však nastává šok: Metoda, respektive modus vnímání, který divák ve vztahu k objektu zvolil, se ukazuje jako naprosto nepoužitelná. Dílo není možné analyzovat zrakovými prostředky, neboť dílo je založeno na funkci zraku jako takového. Zrak skoro vždy využíváme jako nástroj, který nám slouží k poznávání prostředí. Podává informace o barvě, jasu a tvaru, veličinách, které naše mysl okamžitě překalkuluje a zařadí do kategorií vytvořených na základě předchozích zkušeností. Primární činnost naší mysli spočívá v kategorizaci, agregaci a třídění neustáleho proudu vjemů. Turrell však předkládá něco, co nelze v první fázi zařadit do žádné kategorie. Je to označující bez označovaného. Je to barva odkazující v první řadě pouze sobě samotné. Prvotní vjem se ocitá na půl cesty. V momentu, kdy má být kategorizován dochází k zadrhnutí. Až následně si divák uvědomí, že vjem v tomto případě odkazuje k samotnému procesu vnímání. V tomto okamžiku uvědomění se však naprosto mění kontext, ve kterém je dílo posuzováno. „Objektivní“ vztah k „uměleckému dílu“ je transformován do subjektivního zážitku, divák si začne uvědomovat, že to co vidí, není před ním, ale pouze v jeho mysli. V mžiku je mu umožněno prožít proměny v náhledu na vztah mezi objektem a subjektem, kterými filosofie prošla během posledních tisíciletí.

V počátku minulého odstavce zmiňuji „staré“ a „nové“ módy vnímání. Dvě slova jsou v úvozovkách, neboť se tak snažím poukázat na schématičnost daného označení. Existence různých módů vnímání se samozřejmě překrývá a koexistují spolu. Nyní trochu blíže. Až do 18. století převažoval model vnímání založený na konceptu kamery obscury, sestávající z jednobodové perspektivy a objektivního diváka. Během 18. století však došlo ke zlomu. Kombinací společenských, ekonomických a vědeckých faktorů se pozornost přesunuje od výzkumu zobrazování (fyzika, optika) k výzkumu vnímání jako takovému (fyziologie, fyziologická optika). Začíná vycházet najevo, že způsob, jakým je skutečnost zobrazena v naší mysli, není zdaleka tak mechanická, jak si ji představovali dřívejší generace vědců. Počínaje Goethem a pokračuje generacemi fyziologů, včetně např. Purkyně, se zodpovědnost za vizuální vjem přesunuje zcela do zrakového orgánu či na něj navazujících nervových sítí. Tuto změnu v definici vnímání zde jen nastíním, detailněji se s ní zabývá např. Johnathan Crary (Techniques of the Observer, 1990), ale ve vztahu k Turrellově tvorbě považuji za nutné ji zmínit. Určitým způsobem zde navazuji na či opakuji předchozí odstavec, ale domnívám se, že rozdílnost mezi dvěmi definicemi, jedné na filosofickém a jedné na historickém základu, napomůže pochopení mého úhlu pohledu.

Na Turrellově díle je pro mě důležité, jak navazuje na proměny ve způsobech vnímání. Dílo pracuje jednak s vizualitou, s rozdíly mezi různými módy „čtení“ prostředí, a současně reflektuje i filosofické a historické proměny pohledu na něj, bez toho aby je neohrabaně citovalo. Mimo to emocionální působení díla vyvolává mystické až religiózní pocity.

Dílo je třeba zařadit i do kontextu výtvarného umění dvacátého století. Reference zde můžeme hledat na základě vnějších podobností. Můžeme v něm nacházet odezvu na abstraktní plátna Marka Rothka i Barneta Newmana, či monochomní díla minimalistů. Narozdíl od nich však Turrell neřeší problémy formy, motivu či obsahu. Turrell staví na výsledcích předchozích generací umělců, ale současně čerpá daleko více z kognitivní psychologie než dějin umění.
Propojení s abstraktními expresionisty můžeme hledat v rovině mystického myšlení, jako třeba v pozdnější tvorbě Rothka. Důrazem na barvu a konceptuálním charakterem se v díle ozývá tvorba Yves Kleina. Turrellovým dílům nelze upřít mystické působení, i když se nejedná o referenci ke konkrétnímu bohu, ale spíše o vzývání přírodních elementů a všudypřítomného božského „dechu“.

FOTOGRAFIS collection reloaded

2009-01-28T13:56:00.000-08:00

National Gallery Prague, Kinský Palace, Dec 17, 2008 - Feb 8, 2009

The Czech National Gallery is showing a photo exhibition, which is a reprise of an Austrian exhibition showed earlier last year in Vienna. The works on show are all taken from Bank Austria’s collection of photography. The show consists of a representative selection of different historical periods and photographic schools. It’s like walking through a smaller copy of the photographic universe, starting from photography’s birth.

With such an array of famous names and images, one can hardly go wrong. In some way this can be attributed to the fact that it’s a bank’s collection, so only things of ‘real’, stable value, proven by time, are on stock here. This of course also means that there is less “surprises” for the art history educated visitor. Anyway, besides some surprises for everyone, the strongest impression comes from the historical perspective and the almost palpable aura emanating from the displayed masterpieces.

I personally was most touched by the very early works on display – Muybridge, Fox Talbot and alike. Most of us have seen these authors’ images a hundred times in different art or history related publications, yet seeing them in real in front of you is always a different experience. Below you can see a couple of photos which were on display. The historical moment – or period - in time when photography came into existence was a crucial turning point for visual culture. It can be also seen as a final outcome of the struggle of preceding one hundred years – a struggle for a new way of relating to reality and of understanding both our inner and outer worlds. These images signalled the coming of a new era, not only visual, but also social, technological, economical… One series of photos of display explicitly depicts the ‘new era’ of relating to the world: Duchenne’s studies of face with the use of electrodes (Image above). The ‘scientific’ means used to s(t)imulate facial expressions (representing human inner ‘emotions’) depicts the interrelations of knowledge and power, which later verbalized in Foucault’s “society of control”.

Each image in this show is loaded with social and historical connotations of a similar kind as the one mentioned above. Different images refer to different historical contexts, to different modes of vision, to different social attitudes and different political standpoints.

A brief note about the other photos below. There is a sequential image done by Muybridge and a simple fern “photogram” from 1844 by Fox Talbot. Then there are two photo-collages by Herbert Bayer, which were made more than hundred years later. Indeed, they reflect a totally different visual experience then the previously mentioned author. Last a photo of Diane Arbus which is also on the ‘contemporary’ end of the exhibition. Something you don’t see on the pictures yet that is worth mentioning is a couple of contemporary Austrian artists photos from 1970’s and 80’s: Arnulf Rainer, Valie Export and alike.
I could go on and on writing about this show. Yet let me finish here. I can really recommend this exhibition to anyone with at least some interest in art and history and our society in general. For all of you in Prague, there is still a chance until 8th of February 2009, and then I guess the exhibition is moving some other place. This is a rare bright spot in the otherwise rather bleak Czech National Gallery program.

http://www.ngprague.cz/en/179/0/1937/sekce/fotografis-collection-reloaded/

Nestle: Image značky Jojo (Jojo brand image)

2009-01-18T10:18:00.000-08:00

English abstract: This paper is analyzing the Jojo brand image. Jojo is a czech brand of chewy candy produced by Nestle. The main competitors are Katjes and Haribo. Jojo is the market leader in its category, yet its market share is decreasing recently. After an analysis of it's competitors some advice is given how to counter this trend. The focus is on brand image and perception by customers.

Český abstrakt: Tato práce analyzuje brand image značky Jojo. Jojo je česká značka gumových medvídků vyráběná firmou Nestlé. Hlavními konkurenty jsou Katjes a Haribo. Jojo je vůdcem na trhu ve své kategorii, ale jeho tržní podíl klesá. Po analýze konkurence jsou formulována doporučení, jak proti tomuto trendu zamezit. Pozornost je věnována především image značky Jojo a její vnímání zákazníky.

Obsah: Úvod, Hrozby, Cenová konkurence, Imageová konkurence, Výzvy a příležitosti, Cenová strategie, Dětský segment, Segment gumových bonbonů

Úvod
Značka Jojo ve vůdcem na trhu gumových bonbónů v ČR. Její silná přítomnost na trhu má původ jak v tradiční značce, kterou většina spotřebitelů asociuje s cukrovinkami dané kategorie, tak i v cenové strategii, kde se produkty Jojo konkurují mírně nižší cenou oproti konkurenci.

Hrozby
I přes tento úspěch lze pozorovat některé hrozby, neboť na tržní podíl, jenž se značce Jojo podařilo získat útočí konkurence ze dvou směrů.

Cenová konkurence
Nejprve se zaměřme na cenovou konkurenci. Zde měla značka Jojo v minulosti jasnou výhodu. V současnosti je však v tomto směru pozice značky Jojo nahlodávána konkurecí privátních značek. Ty jednoznačně a daleko silněji komunikují cenovou výhodu, případně optimální poměr cena/výkon, a v cenovém faktoru poráží i Jojo. Tyto produkty jsou zaštítěny značkou řetězce, který je prodává, čímž je jim dodána důvěryhodnost kvalitního výrobku. Privátní značka však neoslovuje dětské zákazníky, neboť ty poměr cena/výkon tolik nezajímá. Pro zákazníky z řad dětí je důležitý vjem, že se jedná o produkt “pro ně”, tj. produkt, který je osloví a se kterým se mohou zotožnit. Značka Jojo má v tomto směru oproti privátním značkám výhodu.

Imageová konkurence
Na regálech obchodů však pro Jojo existuje ještě konkurence z druhé strany spektra. Výrobky značek Haribo či Katjes jsou oproti Jojo cenově poziciovány mírně výše a jejích marketingová komunikace oslovuje širší spektrum zákazníků. Mírně výšší cena těchto výrobků jim dává punc “prémiovosti“, jenž bývá doplněna v komunikačním kanálu sdělením o „přidané hodnotě“. Např. sdělení, že želatinové výrobky Haribo jsou dobré pro růst vlasů a kostí, či že výrobky Katjes jsou vyrobeny z přírodních šťáv. Konkurenční výrobky tedy na Jojo útočí těmito „faktickými“ výhodami a také tím, že přímo oslovují dospělé zákazníky, jenž jsou také konzumenty gumových bonbónů. Segment dospělých zákazníků je u značnky Nestlé pokryt značnou Bon Pari a dalšími, která jsou však stále asociovány především s tvrdými cucavými bonbony a ne sortimentem gumových bonbonů. Zatímco komunikace ostatních výrobců gumových bonbonů směřuje ke všem zákazníkům, komunikace Nestlé je v tomto segmentu výrobků fragmentovaná mezi značky Jojo, Bon Pari a další (např. gumové Hašlerky). Komunikace Hariba je založena na sloganu „Haribo chutná malým, stejně tak i dospělým“, čímž firma jednou větou obsála celou šíři trhu. Katjes naopak komunikuje se skupinami odděleně – vedle produktů s motivy Disney cílených na děti se nachází produkty prezentované modelkou Heidi Klum pro dospělé. Schopnost konkurentů simultánně oslovit širší spektrum spotřebitelů jim do určité míry umožňuje ukrajovat z tržního podílu značky Jojo.

Výhoda značky Jojo by naopak měla být ve více cílené komunikaci na dětský segment. Pokud porovnáme balení výrobků, tak se opravdu zdá, že výrobky Jojo více odpovídají vizuální podobě současných animovaných seriálů pro děti. Postavičky na obalech jsou počítačově navrhované a mají nádech postav z 3D animací. Haribo v tomto směru působá daleko „tradičněji“ a střízlivěji. Charakter kreslených postav na obalech i barevné odlišení jednotlivých produktů je sjednoceno velkým a výrazným logem Haribo. Haribo daleko více odkazuje ke své vlastní tradici. Tím oslovuje i generaci rodičů, kteří v něm vidí produkt svého dětství. Barevná paleta jednotlivých balení Hariba také umožňuje snažší rozeznání jednotlivých řad bonbónů. U značky Jojo je barevné provedení balení výrobků identické. Žlutý obal jako takový však není přímo asociovaný se značkou Jojo a i zavedení zelené série „z přírody“ to také nenaznačuje. Dominantním odlišovacím prvkem v mezi produkty je postava symbolizující bonbón uvnitř balení (medvídek, delfínek, papoušek atd.). Postava na obalu „soupeří“ o pozornost spotřebitele s logem značky Jojo a ve většině případů na logem „vítězí“ (velikostí, upoutáním pozornosti). Vzájemná rivalita loga a postavy na obalu působí spíše destruktivně než synergicky. Spotřebitelé mají silnou asociaci mezi značkou Jojo a obecnou kategorií gumových bonbonů. Na obalu výrobku ale narazí na postavu jenž vypadá jako kdyby na obal výrobku zabloudila z animovaného seriálu pro děti. To narušuje původní asociaci, ale nenahrazujej ji ničím novým. Neexistuje spojitost mezi značkou Jojo a postavami na obalech produktů. Asociace funguje pouze mezi postavičkou na obalu a vnitřkem obalu. Chybí spojovací prvek, který by scelil následující asociační řetězec:

„Jojo“ -> produkt: gumové bonbony pro děti -> ??? -> medvídci/delfínci/žízaly...

srovnejme s asociačním řetězcem u značky Haribo:
„Haribo“ -> gumoví medvídci -> další související produkty stejné kategorie

Značka Haribo se stala synonymem konkrétního produktu, který symbolicky zastupuje celou kategorii. Medvídek Haribo tak působí jako „osobnost“ scelující celý sortiment značky. Značka Katjes pracuje s „vypůjčenými osobnostmi“ – postavy se seriálů Disney (Medvídek Pú, Sněhurka) či modelka Heidi Blum. U značky Jojo takováto „osobnost“ chybí. Asociace existuje pouze mezi značkou a generickou kategorií gumových bonbonů, ještě navíc omezenou dovětkem „pro děti“.

U dětí může vznikat silnější přímá asociace mezi „kyselí delfínci“ a produktem samotným, neboť je pro ně důležitější postava, jenž může symbolizovat „kamaráda“, než abstraktní značka. Postav Jojo však existuje celá řada, a nelze je spatřit nikde jinde než na obalu výrobku samotného. Mohou tedy sloužit k momentálnímu upoutání pozornosti, avšak nejsou připomínány dostatečně často na to, aby mohly být motivem opakovaného nákupu. Postavy také nejsou „osobnostmi“ – neexistuje o nich žádný příběh, ani nejsou známy jejich charakterové vlastnosti. Zde jsou zřetelně v nevýhodě k obalovému designu společnosti Katjes i firmě Haribo, jenž má v postavě zlatého medvídka vlastní firemní „osobnost“ nedocenitelné hodnoty.

Ve srovnání brand awareness vidíme, že spolu Jojo a Haribo soupeří ve velmi rovnovážné pozici. Tento průzkum však nerozlišuje výše zmíněný problém, že značka Haribo je přímo asociována s produktem, zatímco Jojo pouze s generickou kategorií.

Výzvy a příležitosti

Cenová strategie
Cenová strategie značky Jojo v současné situaci odpovídá produktovému portfoliu a není třeba jí samostaně měnit. Výše cen umístěna nad privátními značkami a pod konkurenčními značkami odpovídá kombinaci výhod, ze kterých Jojo čerpá – výhoda vlastní značky (oproti privátním značkám) a cenová výhoda (oproti ostatní konkurenci). Pokud uspěšně proběhnou níže uvedená doporučení, mohla by se Jojo posunout do vyššího cenové kategorie jako Haribo či Katjes, kde by dětské části segmentu konkurovala vlastním zajímavým příběhem, respektive „osobností“.

Dětský segment
Shrňme tedy výzvy a příležitosti značky Jojo, nejprve v dětském segmentu. Marketingová komunikace a obalový design výrobku cílí vysloveně na segment dětí. Tato strategie může být účinná, ale není dotažená do konce. Pokud mají postavičky na obalech opravdu děti oslovit, je třeba je zviditelnit i mimo produktové obaly a především jim dodat další rozměr. To lze učinit například vytvořením příběhu mezi nimi, který se bude spojovat veškerou marketingovou komunikaci značky Jojo. Vytvoření příběhu mezi postavičkami Jojo také předpokládá určení „hlavního hrdiny“, zde se nabízí vybrat neúspěšnější výrobek z portfolia Jojo, což jsou v segmentu Kids výrobky Medvídci a Vexta. Vzhledem k silné asociaci medvídka a značky Haribo, však doporučujeme zvážit Vextu či některý z dalších alternativních produktů.

Otázkou cílení vysloveně dětského segmentu zůstává, zda se tímto značka Jojo příliš neomezuje. Cílení může působit kontraproduktivně jednak na dospělé zákazníky, kteří výrobek ignorují protože je „jen pro děti“, ale i na starší děti v rámci dětského segmentu. Tam již často nabývá významu aspirační tendence ke starší věkové skupině a obalový design může být vnímán jako až příliš „dětinský“ a nedostatečně „cool“. Vymezení dětského segmentu je dost široké na to, aby obsáhlo vícero nestejných subsegmentů s rozdílnými zájmy. Např. můžeme rozlišit subsegment předškolních dětí (3 – 6 roků) oproti školákům, ve kterých lze ještě rozdělit na první stupeň (1. – 4. třída, 7-11 let) a druhý stupeň (5. třída a výše, 12 a výše let).

Řešení této otázky může být taktéž začleněno do výše zmíněného „příběhu“ postav značek Jojo, kde bude usnadněna identifikace s charakterovými vlastnostmi postav a ne pouze dočasné zaujetí vizuální podobou.

Segment gumových bonbonů
Pokud trochu poodstoupíme a zhodnotíme značku Jojo v kontextu širšího produktového portfolia značky Nestlé, ukazuje se nám problém fragmentovanosti gumových bonbonů. Zatímco dětský segment pokrývá Jojo, mainstream je pokryt gumovými variantami značek Bon Pari a Hašlerky. Mezi těmito značkami přitom neexistuje pro zákazníka žádná souvislost. Bon Pari a Hašlerky jsou s gumovými bonbony asociovány jen okrajově či vůbec. Konkurenti Jojo jsou naproti tomu komunikují s daleko širší cílovou skupinou, čímž získávají výhodu.

Pokud má být Jojo zachováno jako vysloveně dětská značka (předpoklad je, že ano), pak lze klesající tržní podíl značky Jojo řešit v pouze širším kontextu produktového portfolia firmy Nestlé zdůrazněním existence Bon Pari či Hašlerek jako gumových bonbonů, a to na úrovni prodeje. Např. umístěním gumové verze těchto produktů do sousedství produktů Jojo na regále prodejny. V rámci masové komunikace značky se nabízí možnost komunikovat Bon Pari jako „dospělou“ verzi gumových bonbonů doplňující „dětský“ segment Jojo. „Ovocnost“ gumových Bon Pari by mohla zdárně konkurovat „ovocnosti“ sortimentu Katjes.

Beings from Nowhere: Metamorphoses of Academic Principles in Painting in the First Half of the 20th Century

2009-01-04T07:21:00.000-08:00

City Gallery Prague, Municipal Library Exhibition Space, Oct 22, 2008 – Feb 02, 2009

The exhibition focuses on an often neglected phenomenon of ‘classical’ academic painting in the twentieth century, which was surviving in the shade of all the ‘modern -isms’. Despised by art historians and ‘modern’ artists as shallow, meaningless and empty, yet still supported by a broad loyal audience of middle class citizens, academic painting lived a life on its own.

The exhibition is divided into sections by the painting’s motives: Academic nude, lasciviousness, exotic, allegory/mythology, allegory/death, sentiment, portraiture, self-representation, political representation, public allegory and kitsch. In each part a flock of paintings are arranged as they were in the galleries in the beginning of the last century: One next to the other, stacked in both horizontal and vertical directions, so that the whole wall is covered. This is a quite different view than the gallery of today with paintings placed at eye-level, separated by discreet white spaces of empty wall. Sometimes there is a short video-loop of archival film footage in the center of the paintings grouped together. I think the effect works exactly according to the curator’s intent. You get a ‘picture’ of the whole with one glimpse. If anything catches your attention, you can go onto the next level and examine each painting individually. The closer-look level is supported by an exhibition guide. This features all the accompanying texts (which are very well funded and useful for understanding the exhibition) and a list of all the paintings featured in the exhibition. This is necessary, as individual paintings are not labeled with the author’s names (this would be quite difficult as all the artworks are in close distance, often all the way up to the ceiling). Individual paintings are only labeled with numbers, and if a paining draws your attention, you can use the number to find the information in the exhibition guide. I like this system, as it encourages the original mode of viewing these paintings were intended to. Instead of a modern-ist praise of individuality of the artist, the image itself is on the forefront. The image in relation to surrounding images. The images which originally told a mythological story to the viewer can be witnessed as they are being emptied of their layers of meaning and turned into a flattened version of reality, as a photographic image is. The nudes featured in stories referring to Greek goddesses slowly morph into 1:1 copies of pin-up girl photographs. The movie loop (sometimes a projection of still photograph slide) clearly states the influence which these ‘new media’ had on the tradition of academic painting.

I guess there are different readings of the trends and influences across media. But with this exhibition I appreciate the curator’s clear standpoint. Actually more than that, I consider the exhibition as a whole as the most complete artwork on display. Out of individual parts, each with its own history and influences, the exhibition manages to create a new unit which is more than a sum of its parts. It encourages the visitors to ‘read’ the paintings in a context, to compare and make conclusions. It is not a ‘neutral’ exhibition. And someone might object that the paintings are ‘forced’ into situations they don’t belong to. Yet a clear and meaningful standpoint of the author (curator) is the achievement and not a flaw of this exhibition.

http://www.ghmp.cz/a_knih.php#vyst

Chinese Painting: Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Feng Mengbo

2009-01-04T07:11:00.000-08:00

Gallery Rudolfinum, Prague, Sept 25, 2008 – Nov 28, 2008

The Chinese painting display in Rudolfinum was rather a disappointment. I want to stress that I mean the display. The featured superstar-artists names gave on show what you expected: Zhang Xiaogang’s existential portraits of individuals and families, drawing from recent Chinese historical experience, surrounded by a surrealist aura. They look like old stained family photos. They represent individuals, but are based on a collective memory. Fang Lijun’s colorful “cynical realist” canvases. According to the catalogue, each of the artists’ created works especially for the display at Rudolfinum Gallery. Fang Lijun created a huge canvas full of .. bees .. if I remember correctly, all heading towards one central spot on the canvas. It was huge, it was dynamic… Yet.. I did not really make me feel or think anything. Somehow the colorful bold persons in his paintings reminded me of Jiri Sopko’s paintings. For me, Feng Mengbo was maybe the most interesting part of the exhibition. First I was not very impressed by his large canvases (almost all the canvases on this exhibition were large anyway), but after giving a second thought, I got his idea. After the time which Feng Mengbo spend inside of videogames interacting with avatars, running around with a video camera in his hand instead of the usual machine gun, he stepped back, and looked around, examining the virtual landscape instead of the action. His computer-generated landscapes which look like classical Chinese ink-paintings reflect his experience gathered in the virtual world and project it into a broader historical perspective. They show the common function (from a viewer’s standpoint) for both virtual reality 3D renderings and classical landscape paintings – the function of escaping reality. The actions of displaying a canvas on you living room wall and immersing into a virtual world are put side by side as interchangeable alternatives.

The exhibition as a whole gave a rather strange impression. I wished it would show some more fresh works, something more of a surprise instead of well-known qualities. When I take into account that it was co-organized by the Hong Kong bases Hanart TZ gallery which is representing all of the artists (I did not find Fang Lijun on their website, but I guess there is also some connection), it seems just as a blown-up version of a regular commercial gallery exhibition. Hanart just needed to prop up the image and price tags for some of their most profitable artists by a larger international exhibition. That’s a bit sad. Creating an exhibition of three painters who come up first in Google when you search for “Chinese contemporary painting” anyway. It could have been a better show.

http://www2.rudolfinum.org/index.php?site=vystavy%2Fvystavy-archiv&lang=en&id=86

Three favorite CDs of 2008

2009-01-01T05:15:00.001-08:00

Rod Modell - Incense & Black Light
Bass Communion - Ghosts On Magnetic Tape
Burial - Untrue

and I googled some links for you:

Rod Modell:
http://www.discogs.com/release/1147119
http://www.megaupload.com/pt/?d=MMM292MM

Bass Communion:
http://www.discogs.com/release/284635
http://rapidshare.com/files/66426414/BC_GMT.zip

Burial:
http://www.discogs.com/release/1125103
http://rapidshare.com/files/73597257/burial_-_untrue_2007.rar

Shanghai Biennale 2008 review + video

2008-11-22T13:36:00.001-08:00

The topic of the Shanghai Biennale 2008 was "Translocalmotion" which should supposedly encompass ideas of urban development and globalization in a mega-city like Shanghai. So the topic was location-specific and social, as the city cannot be imagined without the people who live in it.

The resulting exhibition was not very convincing. Three floors of the Shanghai Museum of Modern Art were representing three different approaches to the central topic.

The ground floor was reserved to commissioned location (i.e. Shanghai) specific works. I have nothing to say about this part at all, because it was just boring. I even don't remember anything from that part now, except the worst artwork, which was a shaky unedited video of the in-flight TV screen which is on the back of the seat in front of you.

But let's get to the second floor. Here the curators decided to show a small number of bigger projects. Most of them pretty eye-catching, but... Lets take them one by one.

First you were confronted by a corridor full of Yue Minjun's huge dinosaur sculptures. It was big, it was shiny and sparkling (the finishing paint), and that was it I guess. Each dinosaur's face had the same evil grin which we have all seen a thousand times in Yue Minjun's paintings.

Further on, another room was reserved for Lonnie Van Brummelen & Siebren De Haan's project entitled "Grossraum (Borders of Europe)". I pretty liked this one and it was a nice contrast to the shiny glossy dinosaurs from the previous room. Brummelen and De Haan's project was more on the conceptual side and they were obviously trying to communicate a standpoint on their own. Without reading any long concepts or taking time to see all the videos, I　understood it as a critique/contemplation on the mutually contradicting processes of globalization and regionalization. While some barriers are being opened, others are being erected. I understood the huge field of oversized sugar cubes as a direct reference to the perverted European agriculture policy.

Next there was a sound installation by Suchan Kinoshita. The spatial set up - a dark room with a rotating disco ball hanging from the ceiling - were rather distracting my attention from the sound part and I saw no clear connection between the sound and the rotating disco ball. In contrast to the exciting glittering of light reflections, the sound seemed dull and uninteresting. Although I am sure it wasn't.

Continuing further, you were confronted by an extensive installation of Mike Kelley, a presentation of a fictional city called Kandor. I enjoyed the complexity and combination of different media, but it did not really convince me on the conceptual side. I understand Kelley is working with topics of utopia, urbanism and popular culture, yet I missed something there which would help me to get the whole message. I also found the obvious common connection with the Biennale's general topic a bit too superficial. As if the decision to put in the exhibition would be a result of one single google search.

The above mentioned four works occupied almost all space of the museum's second floor. And they were to be taken as the 'major part' of the exhibition. Not too bad, but not too good either.

In the hallway one could see Tang Maohong's traffic lights, with his typical animations serving as substitutes for the red, yellow and green lights, which made me feel like meeting an old friend. The animations were in his recognizable style, and I guess that in order to conform with the 'urban' topic, he decided to dress them into the 'urban' outfit in the form of traffic lights. As this was not the first time that he presented round-shaped animations, it made sense. Once gain, the 'obviousness' of the connection degraded the result a bit.

I will mention another 'too obvious work', which was Huang Hsinchien's "Shanghai, shall we dance". when I saw the work on previous displays, I considered it pretty fresh and new. But this time, the new title combined with big band music from the 20's made it really over-the top, and it became an entertaining pre-school kids toy at best.

Now just a short note on a two-channel video work by Harun Farocki, Counter-Music. It stood out for me, as it was full of meanings and references, just in contrary to the one-dimensionality of most works. It seemed strangely out of place there. Most people just passed by and flocked around the 2:1 scaled down hyperrealistic model of a migrant’s workers room by Jin Shi.

There's not enough space to mention all the works, but I think you got a general idea by now, specially the repeating words 'obviousness' and 'superficial'. To me, this exhibition was littered with works, which tried to make a very superficial connection to the general topic. The resulting expression was totally 'flat' - it was an image, but nothing behind. Some artists tried to disguise this shallowness behind a conceptual veil, but nevertheless one could not ignore it. There was a video of migrant workers stuck at the train station during the spring festival, a video of miners with cheap inversion effects, but both without any critical reflection. The main topic of urban development was followed on a primitive level of visual similarity only. There was no single mention of any controversial topic with relation the huge changes taking place in the city and economy. If there were any 'problems' depicted, it was always made sure that they were in a place far away from China, as in the case of European borders in Brummelen & De Haan's work, or another documentary-style installation about some conflicts in Africa. In China, everything is obviously perfect and therefore only thing artist's can reflect on is the harmonious society and utopias about to come in a romanticized age of global capitalism and thought control.

1. Yue Minjun / 岳敏君 / Colorful Running Dinosaurs / 五彩龙腾
2. Lonnie Van Brummelen & Siebren De Haan / Grossraum (Borders of Europe)
3. Suchan Kinoshita / Are there Six
4. Mike Kelley / From Kandors 2007
5. Tang Maohong / 唐茂宏 / On the Way / 在路上
6. Huang Hsinchien / 黄心健 / Shanghai, Shall We Dance？ / 上海，我能请你跳支舞吗？
7. Harun Farocki / Counter-Music
8. Clemens von Wedemeyer / Otjesd
9.Yang Shaobin / X-Blind Spot / 杨少斌 / X-后视盲区

The Third Guangzhou Triennial 2008 review + video

2008-11-22T12:56:00.000-08:00

The Third Guangzhou Triennial 2008 was taking place under the tagline "Farewell to Post-colonialism". Here a short quote of the general concept: "The Triennial attempts to open new frontiers for creativity with a critical review of the role cultural discourses of Post-colonialism and Multi-culturalism has played in contemporary art. While affirming Post-colonialism's achievements in exposing hidden ideological agenda in society and inspiring new art, this Triennial also critically examines its limitations for creativity, and calls for a fresh start." My won't review each single artwork, but one impression stays with me - it was a good exhibition.　And that's for a couple of reasons.

What I enjoyed about this exhibition was the fact that for me, it belonged into the category of "treasure hunt" exhibitions. And what do I mean by that? "Treasure hunt", because the quantity of work is big (that's the same for each exhibition of this size) and the selection of works is broad enough so that every visitor can find something that s/he would like. It means going through some less interesting stuff too, but this cannot be evaded, as everyone want to get his share of fun, and we all have different tastes. I succeeded in discovering more than a few good works, and that made me feel satisfied.

Secondly, there was a loose connection between most of the exhibited works, which really reflected the given topic. It wasn't a forced connection, on the contrary, sometimes it was just barely visible. But I believe it's best like that anyway. There was both enough freedom and enough thought put into the whole outline, that visitors could feel comfortable walking around and 'discovering'.

Part of the refreshing feeling came from the fact that as one would expect from the topic, there were quite a lot of artists from all kind of 'post-colonial' countries of the African, South-American or Asian continent. Chinese artists were given a fair share, but did not stand out, which was a good thing.

There were many artworks that caught my attention in this exhibition, so I don't want to be unjust, but I'd like to mention one which impressed me, for unknown reasons, I must admit. It was the work by Qiu Shiming and Luo Haiming. It was both expressing a personal feeling and a general truth. Showing the relationships between time passing and our memories which are fading but recurring at the same time.

There were many other works with stuck in my mind, like the fictional African moon-rocket project by Kilianji Kia Henda, the poetic video work of Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba or Tozer Pak's half-folded library. But I could continue for a long time. There was a good selection of high-quality artwork present.

One idea I appreciated as well was the presence of four intertwining sections: Projects in progress, Thinking Room, Free Radicals and Independent Projects. I could not really distinguish this categories spatially when walking through the museum, but I believe the existence of these categories helped a lot on a conceptual level of the exhibition, as it helped to balance out the presence of presentation styles corresponding to different artistic approaches. In the physical space, the categories were overlapping and mixing, yet the curatorial idea was still floating in the air, creating a "logically structured" atmosphere which was leading the visitor thought the exhibition without being to graphic or educative.

On the contrary to my general experience of art in China, I was surprised by the breadth and depth of represented thoughts. The much too frequent reflections of Chinese capitalism and global commercial culture did not stand out as it often happens in China. The selected Chinese artists' works were chosen because they had something to say and not because of superficial visual similarity. The above-mentioned topics could not be evaded of course, specially with the relationship to given topic, but they were approached from many cultural backgrounds representing the multitude of countries where the participating artists came from.

My time in Guangzhou was quite limited, but I got the impression that the art scene there is less commercial and more 'intellectual' compared to the north of China. There is much less attention on Guangzhou than on Shanghai or Beijing, and the art scene is smaller in Guangzhou. Maybe it is the lack of attention which actually makes the scene flourish more in the sense of ideas. If this is the case, then this year's triennial was definitely a representation of this fact/trend and we can look forward to future events in this area of China.

Overall, the impression I got was that this was a well thought-through concept executed in a sensitive manner. Of course there were some rather questionable selections, but they were in minority and could not override the overall positive image. The flyer with the exhibition map often did not correspond to the actual layout of the exhibition in some cases, but this rather points to the fact that the curators were working up to the last moment, and it could be easily improved if necessary. On the contrary this slight disorientation in physical space combined with an invisible yet present conceptual structure was creating a state of mental awareness without resulting in overwhelming confusion. Just the right state of mind to enjoy the "treasure hunt".

1. Marry Evans
2. Conrad Botes
3. Neo Rauch
4. Qiu Zhijie
5. Zhu Yu
6. Lu Jie
7. Xiao Xiong
8. Qiu Shiming
9. Luo Haiming
10. Carlos Garaicoa Manso
11. Michelle Heon
12. Jitish Kallat
13. Xu Zhen
14. Kilianji Kia Henda
15. Christian Jankowski
16. Zhang Hui
17. Zhou Yi
18. Leung Chi-Wo
19. Tomoko Konoike
20. Zheng Guogu